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:
Understanding the 2017 Oroville Dam Crisis
Chances are likely that unless you’ve lived in or visited northern California, you’ve never heard of the Oroville Dam.
I’m one of those people. I’ve never been to that part of the country, and that dam never popped up in any of my geography or geosciences classes in high school or college.
My awareness of the dam changed last night when I began seeing news reports of mandatory evacuations as part of the dam was expected to collapse, jeopardizing the lives of over 100,000 people living immediately downstream. Needless to say, this grabbed my attention and I’ve been focusing on the dam’s situation, following streaming news stations along with people who live out there posting updates on Internet forums.
Oroville Dam
Located in the mountains about an hour north of Sacramento, California, the Oroville Dam is one of the biggest dams in the country. The dam is 770 feet tall and forms Lake Oroville. The dam and lake are situated on the Feather River. The Feather River is one of several sources of water that continually feed into the dam. Water flows through the hydroelectric power station and is released back into the Feather River where it flows downstream ultimately to the Sacramento River and all points beyond.
It’s an impressive structure located in an extremely scenic part of the country. You can read more about it on its Wikipedia page.
What brings us here today is the recent development of the mandatory evacuation of parts of the town of Oroville and other communities immediately downstream of the dam. Read more…