Ask A Scientist© Weather Archive

>
> >    name         Ben
> >    status       other
>
> >    Question -   Hi, Why is Plainfield IL called Tornado ally. Is that area in
> >great risk of being hit more so then other areas around it?  Is there a web site that I can look into to see the history of Plainfield? I know that Texas is hit with a great deal of storms.
 Is Plainfield also at a greater risk.

>Plainfield Illinois is located close to the home of the Newton "Ask a
>Scientist" web site, hence I am compelled to answer your question.
>Several years ago, a major tornado tore through the town which much damage
>and commensurate personal tragedies. I don't know why it has received this
>name, but one such event is clearly enough.
>Dr. Myron

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>Ben,
>
>I used to live in Plainfield and still have friends who live there.
>One of my friend's Mom lives in a house that was hit with a tornado in
>both 1976 (I think that that was the first one) and 1990.  Plainfield
>and the area right around it have seen several tornados in the last
>50 years.  There is an area southwest of Chicago, that includes
>Plainfield, that has had an unusual frequency of tornados.  Northern
>Illinois is really at the northern border of a donut shaped area
>that encompasses the Great Plains and Midwest that receives a lot of
>tornado activity because of the positioning of fronts and the jet
>stream during the Spring in particular.  The specific reasons for the
>frequency in the small area southwest of Chicago is not known.  The 1990
>Plainfield tornado resulted from a freak situation, where a weak back door
>(from the North) cold front was positioned under the jet stream (also not
>very strong) in just the right way to produce strong convection and
>rotation.  I was doing field work at Argonne National Laboratory at the
>time.  I saw the incredible convection to the north and then heard a
>continuous rumble (like constant thunder from a distance), a sign
>of a tornado,and I immediately hastened everyone back to our brick office
>building.  The tornado was 19 miles away, but could be easily heard.
>I visited Plainfield a few days after the tornado and was amazed
>at the damage. Numerous landmarks that I was used to seeing had simply
>been obliterated.  I was able to follow the tornado path easily from the
>damage.  The most interesting sight was trees chopped off like toothpicks
>about 25 feet above the ground, with the tops nowhere to be seen,
>carried away by the storm.  At that point of the storm (late in the storm),
>the tornado was not touching the ground but was still very intense.
>
>David Cook
>Argonne National Laboratory
>(meteorologist)

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>Dear Ben-
>
>The Plainfield tornado was a very damaging storm, and struck with little
>warning. The area of northern Illinois is outside the area of most frequent
>tornadoes, but they can occur there, and even farther north. This particular
>storm struck with little warning, and was unusually severe. Storms that
>severe are very rare, even in areas where tornadoes are more common.
>
>   Quite a bit has been written about this particular storm. If you go to
>AltaVista.com and do a search for "plainfield tornado" you'll get more than
>50 links to articles or accounts of the storm, and about tornadoes in
>general.
>
>   Since the Plainfield tornado, warning and detection systems have been
>vastly improved, but little can be done to lessen the effects of such a
>devasting storm.
>
>Wendell Bechtold, meteorologist
>Forecaster, National Weather Service
>Weather Forecast Office, St. Louis, MO

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