Winter Tornadoes in the Chicago Area: Breaking News!
In our Dec. 6, 2007, Ask Tom Why column in response to Katie Schoeling's question on winter tornadoes, we stated that the immediate Chicago area had never recorded a tornado during December, January or February. That statement is no longer true.
Palatine resident David Hammer was kind enough to provide us with an article from the Dec. 14, 1951, issue of the "Daily Herald" that reported a tornado in the Arlington Heights area on the evening of Dec. 6, 1951 -- an event previously catalogued as wind damage.
With the help of Jim Allsopp, Chicago's NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist, and a group of tornado experts, the consensus was that the Chicago area did indeed experience a winter tornado. More information about this storm is available at the National Weather Service's web site.
Ironically, Nature provided the Chicago area a second winter tornado last Monday afternoon when an EF-3 twister struck in northwest McHenry County near Harvard. The graphic below focuses on the Chicago area's only two winter twisters.
