The NWS office in Lincoln, IL has updated their tornado climatology for central and southeastern Illinois for the period 1950-2009. During this period McLean County reported an incredible 100 tornadoes, the highest for any county in central Illinois. However, McLean County is the biggest county in this area (a bigger county means a bigger target). This can be partially overcome by calculating a tornado density instead. In that case, Logan County ranks highest in the area with an average of 9.385 tornadoes per 100 square miles. You can click on the individual counties and get more detailed reports of that county, including tracks, dates, magnitudes, deaths, injuries, and property/crop damage of each tornado.
Here is the track map for Champaign County:
First Documented Radar Hook Echo
The Illinois State Water Survey is home to the first ever documented radar hook associated with an actual tornado. Water Survey staff captured the historic event on film on April 9, 1953. This was a major turning point in monitoring severe weather, demonstrating that tornadoes could be identified by radar. This discovery helped lead to the first national weather radar network in the United States.
The radar was located at Willard Airport, south of Champaign IL, and was being used along with a rain gauge network to relate radar signals with rain rates. Don Staggs, the radar technician, had stayed late to complete repairs on the radar. While testing the repairs, he noticed an interesting radar return and began recording the radar scope using the mounted 35 mm camera. As a result, he captured a well-defined hook echo (see photo) on film. Afterwords, researchers related this information to damage and photos along the tornado’s path. More images and information of this event are in the links provided under the photograph.
Additional information on this event:
- Water Survey page on the hook echo event
- History of the CHILL radar
- 1954 Water Survey report on the event (pdf)
- Dr. Fujita’s 1958 Journal of Meteorology article
I talked about this event when Tom Skilling, WGN-TV, hosted his annual Tornado and Severe Storm Seminar at Fermilab in Batavia, IL on April 10, 2010. The video of the presentation is on the WGN-TV web site.