Recently in WEATHER EVENTS Category

The 2009 Fermilab/WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Weather Seminar is to be held Saturday, April 25, at noon and repeated in its entirety at 6 p.m. We hope you can join us! The programs are free of charge, require no tickets and feature seating on a first come, first served basis. This is the 29th year we've presented our Fermilab tornado seminars, and we look forward to seeing you!

Map to Wilson Hall and Fermilab (provided by Fermilab)

Click here for full presentation descriptions for all the scheduled speakers

Click the link below for the scheduled list of speakers and topics; and look for more details about each presentation in the days ahead!
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune

Forces are coming together this evening that threatens to bring a major winter storm to
the Midwest and the Chicago area. A stunningly strong 180 m.p.h. band of jet
stream-level winds is helping generate this intense storm. This is the same system that
brought Las Vegas is biggest snowfall since 1979 and will have copious moisture to
feed it.

This evening radars are beginning to light up with returns as the storm assembles
across the Midwest. Freezing rain has developed in the St. Louis area and is being
reported in the extreme southern portion of the state. Clouds in the Chicago area
should lower and thicken this evening with precipitation expected to begin reaching the
ground in the far southwest portions of the metropolitan area by 7 or 8 p.m. and across
the rest of the area between 9 p.m. and midnight.

Significant accumulations of snow and ice are expected across the Chicago area.
Precipitation is to overspread the Chicago area from southwest to northeast late
tonight—then fall steadily, and at times heavily----through mid-morning Friday.
Strong vertical motion generated by the storm will produce thunder and lightning and
these strong updrafts will produce bursts of heavy precipitation. During thundersnow,
snow accumulation rates can exceed 2 to 3 inches per hour.

The system may seriously impact Friday morning’s rush hour. A cocktail of
precipitation is to affect the area with heavy snow and sleet north of I-80 and snow and
sleet changing to freezing rain and threatening serious ice accumulations to the south
from Pontiac and Kankakee to Rensselaer, Indiana. Local accumulations of around a
foot are possible in counties adjoining the Illinois/Wisconsin line before precipitation
winds down to sporadic flurries or snow showers later Friday morning and
afternoon---tapering off quickly to 1-5” south of I-80.

--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
--Steve Kahn, WGN Weather Center Meteorologist

Thanks to Midway observer Frank Wachowski for providing us with the actual thermograph temperature trace of the precipitous temperature fall that sent readings crashing 45 degrees in just 12 hours from a balmy 51 degrees at 8 p.m. to a frigid 6 degrees above zero at 8 a.m. Monday morning.


Chart provided by Frank Wachowski

We'd like to send out a special thank you to everyone who sent us photos from Thursday's storms -- it was an incredible batch of images that ranged from a never-before-seen "lightning behind a rainbow" snapshot to views of the approaching derecho and storm clouds from across the Chicago area.

Here's a quick shortcut to all the photos we've posted on the blog from Thursday's storm.

(Note: Due to the number of photos, it may take a minute or two for all the photos to fully load.) We hope you enjoy these photos as much as we do.
—WGN-TV Weather Center

It's that time again! Our 28th annual Fermilab/WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Weather seminars will take place on Saturday, April 5 at noon and 6 p.m. You are invited to join us and an outstanding group of speakers at the west suburban Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory off Kirk Road in Batavia.

Click the link below for more details on this exciting event, including the list of speakers and topics!

Brian Smith provides us with a little background on our Fermilab Seminar that we thought you might enjoy reading:

I thought I would give you some facts on the Fermilab Seminar. This year marks the program's 28th year, 27 of those held at Ramsey Auditorium in Fermilab. Its origins date back to 1981, when I was a University of Chicago grad student and involved in Emergency Management. I wanted to have a public seminar on severe weather. Originally, Harry Volkman was going to be the media presenter , but he backed out at the last minute. I knew Tom, and asked him to be part of this seminar. He agreed. The rest is history.

The first year, 1981, was held at Geneva High School auditorium with a total of 40 in attendance. The program consisted of a tag team program of Tom and I presenting storm spotter and safety information. (You will see a picture of this program in my presentation this year).

In 1982, ESDA (Emergency Services and Disaster Agency) agencies in Geneva and Batavia wanted to sponsor the program again. This time, Rudi Dorner, then head of Emergency Services at Fermilab, asked if they could sponsor it. We agreed. The program was originally held on a Tuesday night because Tom's days off were on Monday and Tuesday. We probably had several hundred at that program. We also invited then-Chicago MIC (Meteorologist in Charge) Ray Waldman to be part of the program.

Ever since 1982, Fermilab sponsored the program. Rudi Dorner took care of the arrangements until later in the 1980s when Bill Flaherty from Fermilab took over Rudi's position.

Fermilab Visual Media Services offered their assistance around 1986. They saw us running around trying to coordinate movie films and slides and they asked if they could help. Boy, what help Fred Ullrich and his team have done over the years to assist with production in the program. They have been a great help!

The program continued to grow when we moved the program to Saturday night and Tom began advertising it on television. We also started adding more speakers, including Richard Koeneman from WSFO (Weather Service Forecast Office) Chicago and Bill Hirt from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center.

By the late 1980s we started getting overflow crowds in the auditorium (the auditorium holds 890). Overflow rooms were set up where the program was shown remotely. In the early 1990s It was then decided to have two sessions, an afternoon and evening session. Both of these sessions were well attended. Today, the afternoon session is the most popular of the two sessions. This program has sparked similar other programs to spring up across the country. We also added many different speakers that included Ted Fujita, Tom Grazulis, Ron Przybilinski, Lance Bosart, Chuck Doswell, Harold Brooks, just to name a few.

In closing, I just want to say it is great to be back again. I want to personally thank Tom, Fred Ullrich and his staff, Bill Flaherty, for all the work with this program for all of these years. I want to also thank all of the speakers in taking your time out to help spread the word on severe weather safety. I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday!

Brian Smith
NWS Omaha

Cowan’s been involved in the “Storms of 2007” DVD—the proceeds of which go to the rebuilding efforts in tornado-devastated Greensburg, Kansas

Chad Cowan, a life-long weather enthusiast who lives here in Chicago, has storm-chased for years all across this country's Heartland. He and storm-chasing colleagues were in the field the night the devastating Greensburg, Kansas twister hit last May, all but wiping the community off the face of the earth.

Chad joins us at our Fermilab/WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Weather Seminars with some of the video of that horrific storm---video which is included in a DVD fellow storm-chasers have put together in an effort to aid relief efforts by the Red Cross and the town of Greensburg. Chad’s been actively promoting the sale of a series of storm DVDs which have raised more than $36,000 for tornado rebuilding and relief efforts since 2004. We're looking forward to Chad's appearance!

He offers this link to a YouTube sample of the 'Storms of 2007" video, which he had helped put together and market: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wdymawKR0o

Here’s the web site at which “The Storms of 2007” can be purchased. All funds raised from this DVD’s sales are dispatched to the Red Cross and to the city of Greensburg and directed toward the rebuilding process.

thestormsof2007.org

--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune

Monday, Jan. 14, will mark the debut of the redesigned Chicago Tribune weather page prepared by Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center team. The weather page changes are a part of the redesign of the entire newspaper to update its appearance and enhance its readability.

Let us know what you think of the changes that we have made. You can email your comments to asktomwhy@tribune.com.

WINTER STORM UPDATE: 7:55 P.M FRIDAY

Storm wallops areas north and west of Chicago the hardest with 17" snow, drifts up to 4 feet—one of the area's earliest major snowstorms!

Never has so much snow fallen so early across Chicago's west and north suburbs. Storm accumulation reports into our weather office indicate as much as 17 inches at the Kenosha, Wis., Coast Guard Station, 15.2" at Libertyville, 15" at Streamwood and 13" at DeKalb. There were several unconfirmed reports of as much as 19-20" in areas nearby. Drifting has no doubt complicated snow measurement in some areas. A foot of snow was reported by my WGN/Tribune meteorological colleague and longtime National Weather Service forecaster Steve Kahn at Arlington Heights, and 12" was also reported in Mendota while 11" was reported to us in St. Charles by another of my WGN colleagues, Paul Dailey.

The official measurement at Rockford of 10.7" obliterated the old record for that city's greatest snowfall on this date, nearly doubling that site's previous 5.7" set 28 years ago on Dec. 1, 1978. Though falling snow has departed, wind gusts above 30 m.p.h. continue and drifts up to 4 feet high have been reported in the hard-hit area west and north of Chicago. The huge snow tallies dwarf the more moderate tallies observed in Chicago proper where sleet and freezing rain which fell much of the night through 5-6 a.m. this morning cut into storm totals. A layer of warm air aloft and strong, lake-warmed winds off Lake Michigan's 46° Lake Michigan waters, responsible for delaying heavy snow's thundery onset here around daybreak—a development noted as possible in our advisories over recent days—was overcome by the strong "lift" induced with the arrival a powerful band of jet stream winds referred to by meteorologists as a "jet streak." One function of the complex computer models forecasters employ in generating weather forecasts is to track the movement of these powerful pockets of wind aloft, in order to time the onset of vigorous upward air movement which led to the development of 30,000-foot thunderstorms embedded within this morning's storm. An e-mail I received from one of our Chicago viewers indicates the claps of thunder with these storms were so loud, car burglar alarms went off across his neighborhood.

Though not as heavy as the totals to the west, Midway Airport's 3.3" and O'Hare's official 6.2" qualify as the new snow season's heaviest totals to date, and produced a nightmarish morning rush hour for commuters and the hard working folks at Chicago Streets and Sanitation, who were forced to take on the wind-driven, visibility-slashing and occasionally lightning-laced snowfall in wind gusts clocked at one point at 44 m.p.h. Trees and most objects outdoors are snow-covered as this report is filed, lending the city a winter-wonderland type appearance. By contrast, most precipitation fell as rain with brief snows at the end across northern Indiana. At many locations there, only a dusting was reported. And far south suburban locations reported amounts of 1-2" or less.

The powerful storm arrived with quite a history behind it. Its cross-country trek produced 39" of snow near Alta, Utah; 17.8" at Genessee, Colo.; 16" Chanute, Kan.; 18" at Butler, Mo.; and a top snowfall of 15.2" in Illinois at Libertyville in Lake County. At one point Thursday evening, an 1,110 mile swath of the nation's Heartland was under one form or National Weather Service winter weather advisory or another as a result of the huge and powerful early season storm system.

Please check out the storm snow photos our readers and viewers have been kind enough to submit to us. We'll continue posting them for you as they arrive. We'll have complete coverage of the storm and its impact on our area on Friday evening's WGN Nine O'Clock News.

HERE'S A SAMPLING OF SNOW TOTALS IN TO US FROM OBSERVERS ACROSS THE AREA, INCLUDING A NUMBER OF NATIONAL WEATHER OBSERVERS:
NOTE: Several totals have been updated as of 7 p.m. Friday

Sources: National Weather Service co-op observers, WGN viewers

--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist

Storm described as the worst in memory by many in Michigan City, Indiana downs trees, powerlines; National Weather Service survey team suspects damage straightline wind induced

Chicago Tribune photographer John Smierciak shares these shots of Wednesday night's storm damage in Michigan City. John reports he took these photos at Washington Park next to the marina in Michigan City. A Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory wind sensor there recorded an extraordinary gust at the height of last night's storms of 106 mph. A trained spotter reported a tornado touchdown around 6:12 pm. However, the National Weather Service's Steve Eddy, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, and John Taylor, lead forecaster---both from the Northern Indiana NWS Forecast Office--have been on scene surveying the damage across northwest Indiana. Their observations and those of a helicopter overflight of the area suggest the trees knocked down are oriented in the same direction, a signature of straightline wind damage. A full report on the damage produced by that storm will be issued later today. Subsequent storms in the Chicago area produced 1.20" of rain at Midway Airport, reports the site's official NWS observer Frank Wachowski, bringing the South Side's August rainfall tally to 6.00"--the 9th heaviest since observations began there in 1928. Other storms across Wisconsin overnight have produced rain gauge measurements of 4"+ rain near Madison at Cottage Grove and Reedsburg in southern Wisconsin. There are Doppler rain estimates across the Badger State as high as 9-10" in areas over which t-storms have trained overnight and Thursday morning. Many thanks to former intern Chuck Heaver for his many reports from the scene in northwest Indiana last evening. Thanks, as always, to Jim Allsopp, our Chicago National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist for information on the ongoing storm survery there.

Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist

Gary Lawrence picks up wood from a roof that crashed into his antique shop from a closed factory in the backround while John Stelke looks at his van which was damaged by falling trees outside his home. Photos provided by John Smierciak

Damage on the lakefront in Washington Park next to the marina.