May through July is the peak for thunderstorm clusters with widespread damaging winds several hundreds of miles long, known as derechoes
Published Jun 23 2015 02:41 PM EDT
weather.com
Severe Storm Threat Continues in Midwest; Pushing East
More severe thunderstorms could produce strong winds and
isolated tornadoes for Midwest. As the track moves East, Northeast could
aso see a threat on Tuesday.
Severe weather marched into the High Plains and Midwest Monday with powerful straight-line winds and tornadoes, causing significant damage to a town in northeastern Illinois.
Tornado Reports
Confirmed
and possible tornadoes from Monday night's severe weather outbreak.
Confirmed tornadoes are labeled by their EF rating.
A long-lived squall line known as a derecho ripped across a swath from South Dakota to Wisconsin Monday morning, leaving widespread damage in a path that also included northern Iowa and parts of southern Minnesota. A second round of thunderstorms erupted in the afternoon and evening hours across parts of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, bringing several reports of tornadoes.
Coal City, Illinois, Suffers A Direct Hit
The destruction was evident in Coal City, Illinois, as the sun rose Tuesday morning. Pieces of homes were scattered all over, and trees were heavily damaged.The Rink family home destroyed, kitchen exposed after #tornado hits #CoalCity. @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/k8Mc7ySoF2— Tonya Francisco (@TonyaFrancisco) June 23, 2015
"Houses that were there once are just not there anymore," Coal City Police Sgt. Tom Logan told ABC News. He also told The Weather Channel that five injuries have been reported, though none are considered life-threatening.
The National Weather Service surveyed damage and determined the tornado was at least an EF2 in strength.
Coal City was damaged by an EF2 tornado during the Nov. 17, 2013 tornado outbreak in the Midwest. That tornado was produced by the same supercell that spawned a high-end EF4 tornado that ravaged the town of Washington to the southwest.
Coal City is located about 60 miles southwest of Chicago.
Reported Tornadoes Strike Iowa, Illinois, Michigan
After a brief lull following the morning storms, new thunderstorms erupted in Iowa Monday afternoon, bringing a reported tornado to Monroe County. A Hy-Vee grocery store and several other buildings were damaged by a suspected tornado in Albia, the county seat, according to WHO-TV in Des Moines.Aside from the Coal City twister, several other tornadoes were confirmed in northern Illinois during the evening hours. An EF2 tornado overturned trailers near Sublette in northwest Illinois. Five people who were trapped and suffered minor injuries. Another EF2 was confirmed in Edgington, where a tornado with maximum winds of 120 mph tracked for more than 4 miles. No state had more tornado reports on Monday than Illinois, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
In Michigan, an EF2 tornado injured two people and destroyed a home in Tuscola County near Millington Monday evening. Two tornadoes were reported in nearby Sanilac County around Deckerville.
Earlier in the afternoon, an EF1 tornado with estimated winds at 100 mph hit the town of Portland, Michigan, according to a survey crew from the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Grand Rapids. Five people were rescued from collapsed buildings; three of those rescued include a mother and two children who were trapped inside a Goodwill, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids reports.
NWS did not issue a tornado warning on that particular storm. Weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen said the damage was from a separate cluster of storms and was not part of the derecho farther west.
"We’ve been blessed that no one was seriously injured or killed in this storm," Portland mayor Jim Barnes told The Weather Channel.
Barnes also said 70 homes and two city buildings were damaged by the twister, and three churches were severely damaged. The Portland tornado was Michigan's second confirmed tornado of the year, as an EF0 was confirmed on April 9, according to NOAA.
On average, Michigan sees nine tornadoes from January through June, with this month traditionally being the most active of the year.
Morning Derecho
Storm Reports from Monday's Derecho
Selected reports from the derecho that ripped across the Midwest early Monday.
Wind gusts as high as 122 mph struck the High Plains early Monday morning, leaving one person injured near Hayes, South Dakota, according to an NWS storm report.
The storms left major damage at Sheldon Municipal Airport just north of Sheldon, Iowa, in the same area where a 95-mph wind gust was reported. In the images at the bottom of this page, you can see several examples of the damage these storms caused at the airport.
Other damage reports related to the derecho include:
- Hollandale, Wisconsin: Town shut down due to numerous trees down; structural damage to homes also reported
- U.S. 69 was closed in both directions near Galt, Iowa, because of downed cables. U.S. 65 was also closed near Hampton, Iowa, because of debris on the roadway.
- Menominee, Illinois: Fire house blown over by strong winds
- Holy Cross, Iowa: Roof blown off a school building
- Guttenberg, Iowa: Amish grocery store destroyed
Destroyed home in Garretson. Resident is safe- she hid under the stairs #kelowx pic.twitter.com/HAiCn389Kx— Dan Santella (@KELODanS) June 22, 2015
Radar recap of the derecho on Monday. Plotted are some of the wind gusts along its path.
The complex of storms from South Dakota to Wisconsin qualified as a derecho Monday morning after damaging wind reports spanned more than 400 kilometers, or about 250 miles.
"May through July is the peak for thunderstorm clusters with widespread damaging winds several hundreds of miles long, known as derechoes," said Erdman.