Illinois Tornadoes (and videos) – February 28, 2017
On the afternoon and evening of February 28, 2017, northern and southern Illinois saw numerous tornadoes touch down in the state.
storm reports – February 28, 2017
As a comparison, here’s the severe weather outlook that was issued by the Storm Prediction Center earlier that day.
severe weather outlook – February 28, 2017
Although western and southern Missouri didn’t see any tornadoes in this batch of severe weather, that region had plenty of wind and hail damage from those severe thunderstorms. The brunt of the tornado reports occurred in streaks across northern and southern Illinois.
TORNADO VIDEOS
Washburn, Illinois:
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full chase video
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Ottawa, Illinois:
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Morris, Illinois:
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Ava, Illinois:
night tornado
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That’s the majority of the tornado activity from yesterday.
tornado watches – March 1, 2017 – early morning
A key factor is that this line of severe weather is still progressing across the upper midwest, and also parts of the deep south. As of right now (before 7 am), there are numerous tornado watches from Tennessee to central Ohio.
How much severe weather will we experience today?
tornado outlook – March 1, 2017
That’s going to depend on the strength of this system as well as the moisture in the atmosphere and our daytime temperature.
It looks like we’ll be on the edge of severe weather here in metro Atlanta. That doesn’t rule us out of the threat of tornadoes completely, but should they develop, they’ll be short-lived and weak (a.k.a. EF-0 to EF-1, causing little damage).
The problem for us is that it looks like this weather will be arriving around the time of the afternoon rush hour. This is bad for two reasons. First, this is going to be the peak time period for our temperatures, basically giving these storms their maximum energy for the day. Second, severe weather on busy interstates and surface streets is never a good combination.
That’s still over seven or eight hours from now. We’ll just have to keep an eye on the weather and see what develops.