Fairdale Tornado May Have Been of Rare Intensity For North-Central Illinois

Jon Erdman
Published: April 10,2015



 

A large tornado that heavily damaged the town of Fairdale, Illinois, on Thursday may have been of an intensity rarely witnessed in that part of north-central Illinois.
(MORE: Latest From Fairdale | Rescues From Restaurant | Track Current Severe Storms)

List of F/EF3 or stronger tornadoes in Boone, De Kalb and Ogle Counties, Illinois from 1950 through 2014.
(NCDC Storm Events Database)

According to the National Climatic Data Center, only three tornadoes of F/EF3 intensity or stronger on the Enhanced Fujita scale have occurred in Ogle, De Kalb or Boone counties in records dating to 1950.
These three counties form a rough semicircle southwest, southeast and east of the city of Rockford, Illinois.
Typical EF3 damage (estimated winds 136-165 mph) includes entire stories of well-constructed houses destroyed, severe damage to large buildings such as shopping malls, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted off the ground and thrown and structures with weak foundations blown away some distance.
Survey teams from the National Weather Service forecast office in Romeoville, Illinois, will make the final estimation of the tornado's intensity Friday.
(MORE: How Tornadoes are Rated)

Map of tornado tracks from the April 21, 1967 Midwest tornado outbreak.

Chief among these few previous strong north-central Illinois tornadoes was an F4 tornado which tore through the city of Belvidere, Illinois on April 21, 1967.
This 1967 tornado first touched down only about 10 miles north of Fairdale, just outside the city of Rockford, then carved a 28-mile long path through the southeast side of Belvidere, destroying 127 homes and damaging hundreds more. Four hundred vehicles at the Chrysler assembly plant near Interstate 90 were destroyed, as well.
(WATCH: 1967 Belvidere Tornado)
Of the 24 killed in that tornado, 13 were killed at Belvidere High School, where students were loading onto buses at the time. Another 300 were injured at the school.
(MORE: April is a Dangerous Month For Tornadoes)
The Belvidere tornado was just one of 45 tornadoes in five Midwestern states that day, killing 58 and injuring 1113. Two other F4 tornadoes touched down that day, both in the Chicagoland metro.
One F4 tore through Lake Zurich destroying 75 homes. The most deadly tornado of the day carved a 16-mile path through Chicago's near south side, including the suburb of Oak Lawn, killing 33.
The NWS-Romeoville office called it "Northern Illinois' Worst Tornado Disaster".
Interestingly, Chicagoland has had a history of violent (F/EF4+) tornadoes, besides the April 1967 outbreak.
An F4 tornado spawned during the infamous Palm Sunday Outbreak of April 11, 1965 in the far northwest suburb of Crystal Lake killed 6 and injured 75. F4 tornadoes also touched down just south of Waukegan in September 1972 and in the southwest suburb of Lemont in June 1976.
One of the state's only two F/EF5 tornadoes on record touched down in the far southwest suburbs of Chicago on August 28, 1990, tearing through parts of Will and Kendall Counties, including the city of Plainfield. Twenty-nine were killed and another 350 were injured.
The last violent (EF4+) tornado in the state of Illinois was the during the November 17, 2013 outbreak in the city of Washington.

MORE: Tornadoes, Severe Thunderstorms Ravage Midwest, South