At 2:35pm the Storm Prediction Center issued a Tornado Watch for Northern Illinois. With an unstable airmass ahead of a cold front, thunderstorms were anticipated. A pseudo-warm front stretched across Southern Wisconsin with snowpack to the north and 60° temperatures to the south.Storms began to fire up around 3pm to the west of Rockford. Pea sized hail fell on top of the WREX studios at 3:00pm with a linear thunderstorm. The storm strengthened as it moved into Loves Park. At 3:15pm one inch diameter hail fell along North Second Street. A wall cloud was spotted from the corner of North Mulford Rd and Riverside Blvd. At this time the storm was beginning its transformation from a linear storm into a supercell thunderstorm. It continued moving northeast at an estimated 55mph. Right around 3:30pm, the storm produced its first of many tornadoes. It struck just northwest of Poplar Grove and targeted the area around the popular Edward's Apple Orchard on Centerville Road. One person was trapped under debris as the tornado continued racing east at speeds nearing 60mph. By 4:00pm the tornado was north of Harvard where a northbound Union Pacific freight train was no match. Four train cars were lifted off of the tracks and thrown back down. Shortly afterwards a tractor-trailer truck on US Highway 14 was flipped over north of Harvard, Illinois.
The storm continued moving into Racine and Kenosha Counties where it continued to spawn tornadoes. The town of Wheatland, Wisconsin was severely affected by the tornado. The Milwaukee office of the National Weather Service reports: "Getting reports of 12 homes destroyed in Western Kenosha County, in a subdivision. Some homes gone down to foundation. No idea how well constructed...but we are probably looking at EF2 or better."
Teams from the National Weather Service will be in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin surveying the damage on Tuesday. Once the assessment is made, we will be able to estimate the strength of the tornadoes.
Thankfully, injuries were minimal today and no fatalities have been reported thus far. The Tornado Watch that was in effect earlier has been canceled.
Eric Sorensen
Chief Meteorologist
WREX-TV
7 comments:
You guys did a great job informing all of us.
Thank You
Hey Eric,
I would also like to thank you for keeping us so well informed on all of this, and for showing the most photo's and news coverage on your station! good job. I went chasing this thing from rockton to elkorn, but didnt see the tornado, saw a nice wall cloud though!
Well like I said,I live on the south end of loves park, I am right on the rockford-loves park borderline and when that storm was passing just north of here, we did get one black cloud and it moved quick then we get a big blast of wind and rain, kind of like a mini microburst, but then it passed us and we didn't have much else. I know the majority of the afternoon, the skies were dark north, west, and northwest of here, but we really didn't get much. I seriously thought about heading to rockton, roscoe area to see the storm come, but I don't know if I would have seen the wall cloud. 13 news kicked butt with the coverage. Thats why I only rely on them.
Thank you so much for your comments and thank God with all of the damage that we've shown there were no serious injuries or deaths. -ERIC
I agree there. Eric, did you get my before and after pic of the snowpack and the mammatus clouds over my house today. U all did a superb job.
It is currently raining quite hard here, are we expected to have any adverse weather today besides the rain?
Eric, how much miles did the tornado last before dissapating and when was the time when the tornado touched the ground and ended? Man, my head hurts because of the fireworks next door.
Post a Comment