Plainfield F5

[Jeremy Lemanski]

Does anyone know of or have any pictures of the Plainfield Ill. Tornado of 8-28-1990? i have looked all over the internet and so far have come up empty. Thanks in advance.

 

[rdale]

I don't recall there being any pics that day, everyone described it as a low-hanging cloud mass vs. a tube.

- Rob

 

[Matt Schuch]

I do know that Paul Sirvatka from the College of DuPage has some video of the "plainfield" storm when it was still up near rockford. As far as pics or video of the actual tornado, i have herd that none exist due to the extremely lov visibility on that day.

Matt

 

[Bob Hartig]

I recall one rather blurry image that was posted some years back in Storm Track. I believe the photo was taken by Gilbert Sebenste. It doesn't show the tornado, but it does show the thunderstorm approaching Plainfield. I don't know whether ST has that image somewhere in the archives; a Google search doesn't turn it up.

 

[Joel Wright]

If I remember correctly, that tornado was largely wrapped in rain. I believe it formed from a large HP monster.

Don't quote me on this, but I think a weak tornado touched down on, or very near the NIU campus that day as the storm passed through Dekalb it's way towards Plainfield.


I was only 13 at the time, but I remember being mad that day as all the storms passed by to my east while we baked in intense heat. Much like Roanoke IL tornado last summer...

 

[David Draun]

Originally posted by Bob Hartig
I recall one rather blurry image that was posted some years back in Storm Track. I believe the photo was taken by Gilbert Sebenste. It doesn't show the tornado, but it does show the thunderstorm approaching Plainfield. I don't know whether ST has that image somewhere in the archives; a Google search doesn't turn it up.

I remember that picture from the old Storm Chaser Homepage based at NIU. The caption said that the tornado had lifted shortly before the image was taken as the storm was moving through downtown Joliet.

Hey, can that "wayback page" maybe find it?

 

[Skip Talbot]

A few years ago I saw a picture on a webpage a chaser took of the storm. All you can really see is the precip core. A pole in the foreground was bent and blurred and the chaser commented something along the lines of, "The pole wassn't shaking... I was just scared." That impressed me, and gave me some indication of the power of the storm. How often do you have trouble holding your camera still on the chase due to fear? I looked for the photo not too long ago and can't find it, and I have no idea who took it.

 

[David Draun]

Originally posted by Skip Talbot
A few years ago I saw a picture on a webpage a chaser took of the storm. All you can really see is the precip core. A pole in the foreground was bent and blurred and the chaser commented something along the lines of, \"The pole wassn't shaking... I was just scared.\" That impressed me, and gave me some indication of the power of the storm. How often do you have trouble holding your camera still on the chase due to fear? I looked for the photo not too long ago and can't find it, and I have no idea who took it.

That was Gil's picture, and yea, I'd be scared sh!tless too if a storm I was looking at had dropped a tornado that would later be rated F5 a few minutes earlier.

 

[Adam Ball]

As far as I know there are no pictures of video of the acual tornado. Paul Sirvatka's video was taken just prior to the tornado in northern Kendall County. From eyewitness reports, as well as the nature of the storm, being a big HP, it is possible that it was similar to the Hallam, NE tornado which was basicly the meso circulation on the ground. Due to this fact alone it would be hard to get any decent pictures even if anyone was there with a camera.

There was a storm stories about this event not to long ago that had some of Paul's video on it. Mainly the rfd and lots of rain.