Hail, and lots of it, accompanied the Chicago area's first outbreak of severe weather Wednesday afternoon and evening (March 30). More than six dozen reports of hailstones 0.75" in diameter or greater were logged by the National Weather Service (NWS)-Chicago Forecast Office.
Several of the t-storms moved along at speeds as high as 64 mph. Little wonder a 62 mph wind gust was reported at DuPage County Airport in West Chicago--and it's likely, given the speed at which these storms moved, that even higher gusts may have occurred in parts of the Chicago metro area but, because they occurred in unmonitored areas, speeds were unavailable. NWS Meteorologist Nathan Marsili at the Chicago office tells us the so many hail reports flooded the office in such a short period of time during Wednesday's severe weather assault that some duplicate observations weren't listed when they occurred in areas already logged as having received hail.
The NWS-Chicago office issued 23 timely severe weather warnings during the outbreak: 16 severe t-storm warnings, 4 marine warnings and 3 tornado warnings. The area was placed under a series of tornado and severe t-storm watches by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.
--Tom Skilling
Pictures of Chicago's Hail Courtesy of Brad Sowers and Dan Hanson:
Photos by Brad Sowers
Photo by Dan Hanson
