Warm weather provokes mammoth storm outbreak
Twisters and severe thunderstorms tore across 8 states to Chicago’s west Thursday even as city residents basked in the year’s warmest weather.
O’Hare’s 70° high marked only the 12th time March 30 has produced a 70° or higher temperature since 1871. Not since the 70° on Nov. 4 has it been as warm here. The metro area’s highest temperatures included 73° at Gary, 72° at Kankakee and Joliet and 71° at Romeoville—readings nearly 20° above normal and more typical of late May.
The unseasonable warmth fueled waves of violent thunderstorms across the nation’s mid-section Thursday, some 48,000 ft. tall. By 10 p.m., 300 reports of severe weather—which included two dozen twisters—had been tallied by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. A still potent eastbound squall line threatened to boost those totals.
-Tom Skilling