Chicago Area Sets Record for Most Tornadoes in a Year in 2015

 

 

 

 

The severe weather season in northern Illinois typically doesn’t start heating up until late April, and the season generally peaks in June, but this year it started fast and furious. 

 

An unusually strong early spring storm system moved into the Midwest on Apr. 9, 2015. A northward push of humid, unstable air collided with cool, dry air draining down from the Plains. The perfect recipe for an early season tornado outbreak.

 

 

**Radar image of a tornado-producing supercell thunderstorm on the night of Apr. 9, 2015, near Rochelle, Illinois. 

            

 

The result was 14 tornadoes across the central U.S. that day, seven of which tore through northern Illinois. One of them was an EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which caused extensive damage in Rochelle, Illinois and surrounding areas. That EF-4 remains the strongest tornado reported in the U.S. so far in 2015.

 

 

http://www.weather.com/storms/tornado/news/chicago-illinois-record-tornadoes-2015