The sun was out, yet the wind howled Thursday gusting to 54 m.p.h. at southwest suburban Romeoville and 50 m.p.h. at DeKalb. The powerful non-t-storm winds snapped tree limbs, which in turn downed power lines. As many as 21,000 Com Ed customers were without power for a time at the height of Thursday afternoons outages around 5 p.m. The gales fanned the flames of major fires in Harvey and Bolingbrook. Chicago’s Streets and Sanitation crews responded to 450 reports of damage to trees and traffic signals.
Thursday powerful gusts were the product of a vertical alignment (or “stacking”) of strong southerly winds through the lowest eight miles of the atmosphere. Surface winds can become especially powerful when all atmospheric momentum is channeled in a single direction. Blowing dust off freshly plowed fields the length of Illinois became airborne contributing to the hazy appearance of Thursday’s skies.
--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
