Freak January Tornado Touches Down In NW Ill., Wis.
A freak January tornado moved through northwest Illinois Monday, destroying buildings, toppling trees and knocking railroad cars off the tracks before moving into Wisconsin, emergency workers said.
The National Weather Service said it received unconfirmed reports of two touchdowns, one in the rural northern Illinois village of Poplar Grove and the other north of the city of Harvard, about 13 miles apart.
The storm that ran through Poplar Grove left three people with minor injuries, said Boone County Sheriff's Lt. Perry Gay. Six or seven homes were destroyed; a number of sheds and barns were destroyed as well, but Gay did not know how many.
A sheriff's deputy spotted a tornado on the ground at about 3:30 p.m. about 1 1/2 miles north of Poplar Grove, Gay said. According to the 2006 Census, the village has about 3,500 residents.
"Had the tornado been a little bit south, it would have been smack dab in the middle of the village, which also has a lot of businesses," Gay said. "We were very fortunate it hit on the outskirts."
Rescue crews planned to spend Monday night making sure no one was trapped in debris, but authorities believe the destroyed houses were unoccupied when the tornado struck, Gay said.
Authorities also had to help people who were in trapped cars surrounded by live electrical wires, Gay said. Numerous roads were closed because of downed trees and electrical wires, he said.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said no one was injured when six rail cars derailed Monday in Harvard in McHenry County.
One car that ended up on its side was a tank of ethylene oxide, a flammable material widely used to sterilyze medical supplies, Davis said. A Union Pacific manager on the scene determined the tank did not have any leaks.
The other five derailed cars were boxcars on the train headed to Janesville, Wis., from North Lake, Davis said.
Bill Lischka saw the tornado form as he sat drinking coffee at the Boone County Family Restaurant in Caledonia, near Poplar Grove.
"A tornado just popped right out of the clouds," he said. "Just a classic twister."
Lischka said the funnel looked like "a snake dangling" as it wove its way north and east. He didn't see the tornado touch down but said he has heard about damage to several businesses and homes.
The last time a tornado touched down in January in north-central or northeastern Illinois was Jan. 25, 1950, according to the National Weather Service.
That tornado hit Manteno, in Kankakee County, about 50 miles south of Chicago.
On that day in 1950, the air was warm and moist, and Chicago hit a high of 67 degrees, weather very similar to what Illinois experienced Monday, said NWS meteorologist Eric Lenning.
Northern Illinois is usually free of tornadoes in the winter because colder, more arctic air sits over the region, Lenning said. Tornadoes need warmer temperatures and moist air for support, conditions located much farther south in the wintertime.
But for the last couple of days, "we've had spring-like weather. That's when we'd normally expect this kind of (severe) weather," Lenning said.
That tornado hit Manteno, in Kankakee County, about 50 miles south of Chicago.
On that day in 1950, the air was warm and moist, and Chicago hit a high of 67 degrees, weather very similar to what Illinois experienced Monday, said NWS meteorologist Eric Lenning.
The Chicago area enjoyed record high temperatures earlier Monday. As of 1 p.m., the high in Chicago had reached 64 degrees at O'Hare International Airport, eclipsing the previous high of 59 degrees, set in 1907, according to the National Weather Service.
But the high temperatures are being overshadowed by severe weather rapidly moving into the area.
A tornado watch remains in effect for much of northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana, including Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and WIll counties in Illinois, and Lake and Porter counties in Indiana until 9 p.m.
Flooding could also become a problem as high temperatures melt accumulated snow, and rainfall is expected. The weather service has issued a flood watch for the Chicago metropolitan area, in effect from 6 p.m. Monday through Tuesday afternoon.
Scattered thunderstorms will make their way through the area Monday night into Tuesday morning, bringing possibly heavy rain, thunderstorms, and possibly nickel-sized hail, according to the weather service.
Tuesday will be rainy as well, the weather service says, and just to make things interesting, Mother Nature will dial down the temperatures, with lows expected to be around 30 degrees. There will be a 30 percent chance of snow falling later Tuesday once temperatures fall, at which point winds will whip up gusts of 30 mph.
Temperatures are expected to be a little closer to normal later in the week, with highs around 40 and lows in the upper 20s by Wednesday night, with a 30 percent chance of either rain or snow.
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