Mini tornado alley in IL?

[Andy Wehrle]

Wanna see a tornado from your front porch? You may have more residence options besides OKC and Thayer County, NE. Try Tazewell/Woodford Counties in IL.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/surveys/may10tor.htm

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/surveys/may302...02003/may30.htm

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/events/may302004/may30.php

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/events/jul132004/jul13.php

:shock:

Also one of the tornadoes on April 19, 1996 passed through this area.

 

[Gabe Garfield]

Not too shabby...the Throckmorton/Harper of Illinois, at least for the time being.

I really like this picture from May 30, 2003:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/surveys/may302003/woodford1.gif

The rain on the road and the angle of the sun...that's what it's all about.

Gabe

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Find your favorite county. Tazwell indeed has a high frequency of tornadoes.

[Broken External Image]:http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/misc/1976F1.gif

 

[Nick Smith]

Local tornado alleys

Broyles, J.C., and K.C. Crosbie, 2004: Evidence of Smaller Tornado Alleys Across the United States Based on a Long Track F3-F5 Tornado Climatology Study from 1880-2003. Preprints, 22nd Conf. Severe Local Storms, Hyannis MA. [2940K PDF]

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/broyl...es/longtrak.pdf

 

[Shane Adams]

Umm, NO

 

[Robert Dewey]

Does appear to be some decent hotspots in IL, but I believe those are anomalies, as I see a few "purple" counties, surrounded by counties that get nothing. What I find more interersting, is the relative void of tornadoes in KS, when OK,NE, and IA seem to get quite a few... According to that map, IL is just as active as KS, which has me wondering, because climatology for KS is 47, while it's 26 in IL, and 31 in IA.

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Important to note that the plot I provided is for F1+ tornadoes. I have a whole bunch of tornado climo stuff on my site including F0+, F1+, and F2+ plots with temnporal breakdown. All part of a pending MS thesis dealing with population density and F-scale breakdown. While KS does have a higher average than IL, it has a very high percentage of F0 tornadoes not reflected in the above plot.

http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/primary/climo.htm

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

Notice that most of the "higher" counties are ones which have large populations of people. I'm willing to be alot of those "lower" counties have had just as or if not more tornados, but they were not reported and have gone unnoticed.

 

[Kurt Hulst]

You so forgot May 23, 2004.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/events/may2320...004/gridley.php

[Broken External Image]:http://midwestchasers.com/2004/May/may23/Pict0029.JPG
This is a picture of a video grab i took.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

I didn't forget May 23rd, I didn't include it because I was focusing on the area from Tazewell County into the part of Woodford County bounded roughly by Secor, Eureka and Roanoke, which has seen four tornado days in two years.

Good job on catching the McLean County tornado on May 23rd though. I believe that was the biggest tornado of the day.
http://sphs.angeltowns.net/A_R_Wehrle/stor...nts/052304.html

 

[Jeff Lawson]

You know, I grew up in one of the dark purple counties on that map, yet in the 20 years I lived there, I never saw a single tornado. And it's not like I wasn't trying.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an honest-to-goodness tornado in (what I would consider) North Central Texas. The closest I've come was the Marietta, OK tornado on May 6, 2001 and a short-lived tornado near Iowa Park, TX in June 2000. Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, North Central Texas is still the "butt" end of Tornado Alley.

I'm hoping Nebraska offers more "gentleman's chase" opportunities. I need to find the quickest route to Thayer County.

 

[George Tincher]

I believe there are several of these mini alley type areas across the country. Obviously you have the main alley in the SRN and CNTRL Plains, with a bullseye over OK. But there's also mini-alley areas in IL, there's one across SRN IN, SW OH and NWRN TO NRN KY. Go father south and you'll find another that covers a large chunk of MS and AL.

I think "tornado alley" is kind of a generic term. There's not one huge alley, but rather a bunch of smaller ones.

 

[Fabian Guerra]

Wow Nick, your graphic is already copywritten? :wink:

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by nickgrillo
The meteorologists at the White Lake NWS (Detroit/Pontiac) determined that the cause of this high frequency of tornadoes in such a small area may be due to the \"Irish River Valley\" that stretches from Genesse to Lenawee counties. They've said that this may cause a dramtic change in shear in storms, and cause them to start rotating and produce...

I'm having trouble understanding the connection between a river, and storm relative shear. I could see a large lake interacting by laying out boundaries and sea-breezes, but not a river. I don't see a river contributing to instability either, especially rivers that never get above 60-65F (cooler than the T/Td's during most severe weather situations)...

Having said that, I just think it's another coincidence, or anomaly - Whereas OK has a reason for their high number of tornadoes (located near the desert southwest, and the moist Gulf coast)... And is often close to the lee side (of the Rocky's) cyclogenesis region of most SFC systems in the spring, whereas MI tends to catch systems as they are occluding/shearing out (at least until summer, then we get into the northwest flow, and the "clipper" shortwaves bring our bouts of MCC's and MCS's)...

 

[Thomas Loades]

There is also, arguably, a mini-alley in southern New England, mainly around CT–MA. There have been violent tornadoes here — most notably Worcester, MA, 6/9/1953 (F5), and also Windsor Locks, CT, 10/3/1979 (F4), and New Haven, CT 7/10/1989 (F4) — and a moderate incidence of tornadoes annually. Of course, some of the U.S.'s earliest tornado reports, back to 1643, come from MA, including the first killer tornado in U.S. history; all those reports undoubtedly owe to the high population density there as opposed to anywhere else in the country, but the point is, there were tornadoes sighted fairly frequently there.