As many are aware, my daughter, Rebecca, lives in Chicago and really loves the cold weather – not sure where she got that trait!! We do share a love of snow, though. So she has really been enjoying the snow and cold over the past several weeks. However, that all changed over the weekend as unseasonably warm weather set new records at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. This included 60 for a high on Sunday, January 6, and a high of 65 on Monday, January 7. That 65, by the way, is only two degrees from the all time high for January.
And to top off the record warmth, along comes severe weather that resulted in a rare event – actually two rare events – tornadoes. Here is an excerpt from the Chicago NWS web site that describes those events and their status in the rare event column:
A weather pattern more typical of early May than early January across northern Illinois brought severe weather to the area Monday afternoon. Two tornadoes were reported with these storms in counties along the Wisconsin border. The tornadoes were north of Poplar Grove in Boone County and north of Harvard in McHenry County.
The National Weather Service has tornado records dating back to 1950. In this 58 year period of record, only one other tornado has ever been documented anywhere in north central or northeast Illinois in the month of January. That tornado occurred on January 25, 1950 at Momence in Kankakee County. It was rated F2 on the Fujita scale. It was a day similar to Monday with temperatures in the middle 60s. In fact, Chicago set the all time record high for the month of January, with a temperature of 67 degrees, on that date.
National Weather Service survey crews will be mapping the damage paths during the day on Tuesday and determining more information about these tornadoes, including path length, path width, and severity on the Enhanced-Fujita (EF) Scale.
It is interesting to note that the only other January tornado in Illinois occurred in late January while this event occurred in early January.
With such an active start, I can’t help but wonder what is in store for us for 2008.
-Brian-
PS And don’t forget to listen to our Weather Brains netcast from last night, episode 102, that features a live interview with Vince Condella, chief meteorologist at WITI-TV in Milwaukee, WI. www.weatherbrains.com
