2006 A Record Year in Illinois

[Andrew Pritchard]

It wasn't a terribly awful year everywhere...

A TOTAL OF 124 TORNADOES WERE REPORTED WITHIN THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS SO FAR IN 2006...BREAKING THE RECORD OF 120 TORNADOES
THAT OCCURRED IN 2003. THE HARDEST HIT AREAS WERE IN CENTRAL AND
SOUTHWEST ILLINOIS WHERE 106 TORNADOES WERE REPORTED. THE RECORD
NUMBER OF TORNADOES RESULTED IN 1 FATALITY AND 49 INJURIES.

More information...
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=ILX&product=PNS&issuedby=ILX

 

[Terrence Cook]

Great Illinois Storms (may 17, sept 22)

I can agree that there were some terrific storms in Illinois this year. On May 17th I chased 350 miles and on September 22nd something like 550 miles with Jared Farrer. Saw a weak tornado North of Murphysboro about 30 mi. for approximately 10 seconds, so it was worth it!

PS: Illinois can be a great place to chase in the central and northern regions, but further south the trees and increasing hills become an obstacle. I am always up for chasing the northern 2/3 of IL!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

T-10 seconds until someone (Grillo) mentions April 2nd.

 

[Danny Neal]

124 tornadoes in IL. How many did Danny boy see? ZERO!!! Yup you guessed it! I knew Illinois had its' fairshare of tornadoes this year, but by no means did I think it would be a record year. If there is some good out of this, there weren't TOO many casualties, although I feel for the 50 members and families directly affected by the tornadoes. Heh it's still 2006 for 19 1/2 more days hehe.

EDIT: Wow just read the bottom of the page, you go from 19 tornadoes one year to 124 the next????? :whistles:

 

[nickgrillo]

I got my only true tornadoes of the year (2006) in Illinois -- the F2 and F0 on 3/12 around and in Springfield.

As for 4/2/2006, you'd think with all of the tornadoes reported that there would be photographic evidence of at least a minority of them, but I've yet to see any. The vast majority of the reported tornadoes came from reports along a fast-moving squall line that moved south of the warm front. I heard an abundance of "large and extremely dangerous" tornado reports realtime as I was rushing along I-70 through the STL metro to get in front of the line (which I wasn't successful in -- even while performing significant speeds) which ended up unconfirmed.

I think a lot of people forgot what the definition of a tornado was on 4/2/2006 and a large amount of the people reporting the tornadoes were uneducated. The "large and extremely dangerous tornado" that moved towards the Springfield area along I-72 was actually just a group of gustnadoes under the leading edge of the squall line which gave the illusion to untrained eyes as a multi-vortex tornado. I chased several different cells that afternoon and evening and they all had the same features -- they were high-based and outflow dominant in nature. On the other hand, some portions of the line actually had deep mesocyclones present on the ILX WSR-88D, and some persisted for a 30-45 minutes or more, for that matter. The classic supercells were confined to areas further south in the open warm sector, which I opted not to chase because of the veered boundary layer wind fields (although there was moderate ambient low-level SRH in some areas further south). Instead, I wanted to chase closer to the warm front and backed surface flow where I figured low-level vorticity would be the strongest.

I'd love to see some shots of any of the 4/2/2006 tornadoes that occured in IL.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I do agree with the whole April 2nd issue. There was a good amount of false reports that day, but some of them were true as well. Dan Robinson has outstanding video of strong rotation in a wall cloud from that complex, evidence that there were some actual deep mesocyclone activity.

Some of the chasers from Peoria mentioned seeing a few tornadoes near Springfield, but I never did see anything from them.

 

[Danny Neal]

TWC did one of their trademark "ON LOCATION SVR WX" broadcasts from Springfield on 4/2. They showed video of the "oncoming large tornado" and like Nick and I am sure many others feel it was only gustnadoes and even the broadcast from TWC showed nothing more than outflow dust being kicked up as it hit the west side of Springfield. Tornadoes did occur this day, and I, like the majority of you feel, there were FAR less than 36 tornadoes this day....The only one i stand firm about is the one that hit Taylorville.

 

[Dick McGowan]

We got on a storm near Monroe City MO, (which a tornado was reported 6 mi SW of there at the same time) and from the beginning they were very OFD, and everything went linear fairly quickly. I wouldn't doubt a few tornadoes that crossed into IL, but the places to be that day were in IA, SE MO, or AR.

 

[nickgrillo]

Yes, there was a tornado reported with the storm featured above at the same time (just a few miles to the southwest of us). I'd almost like to bet money that the reported tornado was a rainshaft mistaken for one. It was a storm that had significant outflow dominance, a high base (the LCLs were higher in the afternoon further north where boundary layer moisture wasn't as robust) and a slightly elevated updraft parcel source.

This cell was one of the few that popped up once CINH began to erode and lift was strong enough by 3-4pm. At the time, there was different convective cells surrounding it, helping to compete for inflow and choke off any real potential for it to root its parcel source closer to the sfc and take advantage of the low-level SRH.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Same 4/2 storm that Dick McGowan was on... we got on the Illinois side on the supercell that moved out of the Mark Twain Lake area into Pike Co. IL. We could not discern any areas of interest/rotation but we did get peppered by 1.5" hail in the town of Detroit (Pike Co. IL). Got home and was very depressed to see all the wild action down in NE Arkansas, MO Bootheel, and West Tennessee. (Boot kicking self over and over again)

 

[Andy Wehrle]

EDIT: Wow just read the bottom of the page, you go from 19 tornadoes one year to 124 the next????? :whistles:

In Wisconsin, we went from 62 tornadoes in 2005 to 10 in '06. You'd think given the proximity of the states that tornado activity would be more closely linked, but instead they are often opposite. Usually what happens is an outbreak day in one is a bust day in the other, because out of all the areas of the weather system expected to produce tornadoes (warm front, triple point, along the cold front etc) only one actually does.

 

[Jarrod Cook]

In Wisconsin, we went from 62 tornadoes in 2005 to 10 in '06. You'd think given the proximity of the states that tornado activity would be more closely linked, but instead they are often opposite. Usually what happens is an outbreak day in one is a bust day in the other, because out of all the areas of the weather system expected to produce tornadoes (warm front, triple point, along the cold front etc) only one actually does.

There is a reason for that...Northern IL didn't get nearly as many as C. and S. IL got:

BY REGION OF STATE, THE DISTRIBUTION OF TORNADOES WAS AS FOLLOWS:

NORTHWEST (NWS QUAD CITIES) 7

NORTH CENTRAL, NORTHEAST (NWS CHICAGO) 10

CENTRAL, EAST, SOUTHEAST (NWS LINCOLN) 72

SOUTHWEST (NWS ST. LOUIS) 34

SOUTH (NWS PADUCAH) 7

 

[Danny Neal]

When I go chasing in IL, I always head into the "mini alley" of Peoria - Lincoln - La Salle, You are almost guarenteed more often than not to get at least SOMETHING worth going out for. I mean look at 72 tornado reports in that general area? It seems like every year if it's going to happen it'll be in that area. Although I should point out the southern tip of Illinois has gotton its' fairshare of tornadic thunderstorms over the years. Other than May 30th,2003 and April 20th, 2004 you barely ever hear I-80 north from the Mississippi to the Lake getting much of anything...... tornado wise that is

 

[Jarrod Cook]

April 2 was definitely a strange day. We chased the leading edge storms for quite a while. I do beleive a lot of reports were false, but I know several were legit too. Most of the time the leading edge looked like this:

Every now and then brief gustnadoes formed under this edge, and there were also rain curtains that dropped down. However, we also saw this rotating wall cloud southwest of Springfield:

This was also on the leading edge of the line.

As far as the reports of large and extremely dangerous tornadoes over weather radio, I'm not sure if that was entirely due to spotter reports. I think there was also the factor of getting peoples attention because the Springfield tornado was not long before, and this day was anticipated as being just as bad.

 

[PeteMcConnell]

I'm having a tough time figuring out how many tornadoes touched down in Nebraska this year, but I know the number is low. Illinois did have a big year. I was wondering if Wisconsin was going to go nuts again this year in November to provide one more good chase opportunity for the year, but obviously that didn't happen.