Tonight we're watching television in the middle of a desert 1,500 miles away from home, we're watching the Weather Channel and we get a report of heavy thunderstorms and a tornado sighting in "the south end of Springfield, Illinois." The announcers move on to a live report from Fayetteville, Ark., and a tornado expert in a TV studio somewhere. Back to scheduled programming, and no more word on Springfield.
So we get on the internet, follow the links off the Yahoo! weather page for Springfield and we get the storm warnings posted by the National Weather Service as they appeared.
And we breathe a little easier. Here's the sequence, earliest reports on top, as the storm tracked through central Illinois:
/O.CON.KILX.TO.W.0011.000000T0000Z-060313T0315Z/At 8:20 p.m. (MST), the Weather Channel is reporting "numerous reports of damage across the Springfield area." And we'll have to wait till morning to get details on that, but for now it looks like the worst of the storm tracked south and east of town, and no fatalities are being reported. I still wouldn't want to chase storms for the Weather Service. Too much high-speed driving along two-lane blacktops for that. But my hat's off to the storm spotters who made visual sightings of the storm south of town on I-72 and north of Buffalo. And to all the geeks and techies who made it possible for me to chase the storm through cyberspace from half a continent away.
SANGAMON-LOGAN-
850 PM CST SUN MAR 12 2006
...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 915 PM CST FOR
NORTHERN SANGAMON AND SOUTHERN LOGAN COUNTIES...
AT 848 PM CST...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO. THIS
TORNADO WAS LOCATED 2 MILES NORTH OF BUFFALO ON CORNLAND ROAD...
OR ABOUT 15 MILES EAST OF SPRINGFIELD...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.
PEOPLE NEAR THESE LOCATIONS ARE STILL THREATENED...
ILLIOPOLIS.
MOUNT PULASKI.
CHESTNUT.
LATHAM.
TORNADOES ARE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS AT NIGHT...BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD
TO SEE. DO NOT REMAIN IN YOUR CAR OR MOBILE HOME. INSTEAD...TAKE
COVER IN A REINFORCED BUILDING. GO TO A BASEMENT OR INTERIOR ROOM ON
THE LOWEST FLOOR.
REPORT ANY SEVERE WEATHER OR DAMAGE TO YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY
MANAGER...OR THE NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY...FOR RELAY TO THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
LAT...LON 3994 8974 3970 8968 3974 8939 3985 8922
4014 8916
----------------------------------------
/O.CAN.KILX.TO.A.0073.000000T0000Z-060313T0400Z/
/O.NEW.KILX.TO.A.0077.060313T0242Z-060313T1000Z/
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED TORNADO WATCH 77 UNTIL
4 AM CST MONDAY WHICH REPLACES A PORTION OF TORNADO WATCH 73. THE
NEW WATCH IS VALID FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS
IN ILLINOIS THE NEW WATCH INCLUDES 17 COUNTIES
IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS
CHRISTIAN DE WITT LOGAN
MACON MASON MCLEAN
MENARD PEORIA SANGAMON
SHELBY TAZEWELL WOODFORD
IN WEST CENTRAL ILLINOIS
CASS FULTON MORGAN
SCHUYLER SCOTT
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF...BLOOMINGTON...DECATUR...HAVANA...
JACKSONVILLE...LINCOLN...NORMAL...PEORIA...SHELBYVILLE...
SPRINGFIELD AND TAYLORVILLE.
----------------------------------------
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LINCOLN IL
825 PM CST SUN MAR 12 2006
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LINCOLN HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SOUTHERN LOGAN COUNTY IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS
NORTHERN SANGAMON COUNTY IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS
* UNTIL 915 PM CST
* AT 825 PM CST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR AND SPOTTERS
WERE TRACKING A TORNADO IN SOUTHWEST SPRINGFIELD NEAR THE I-72 AND
I-55 AREA...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 40 MPH.
* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...
SPRINGFIELD...
SHERMAN...
ROCHESTER...
CANTRALL...
RIVERTON...
DAWSON...
WILLIAMSVILLE...
BUFFALO...
OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE...MECHANICSBURG...ELKHART...
CORNLAND...ILLIOPOLIS...MOUNT PULASKI AND CHESTNUT.
IN ADDITION TO THE TORNADO...THIS STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING
GOLFBALL SIZE HAIL AND DESTRUCTIVE STRAIGHT LINE WINDS.
TORNADOES ARE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS AT NIGHT...BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD
TO SEE. DO NOT REMAIN IN YOUR CAR OR MOBILE HOME. INSTEAD...TAKE
COVER IN A REINFORCED BUILDING. GO TO A BASEMENT OR INTERIOR ROOM ON
THE LOWEST FLOOR.
REPORT ANY SEVERE WEATHER OR DAMAGE TO YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY
MANAGER...OR THE NEAREST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY...FOR RELAY TO THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
LAT...LON 3987 8989 3968 8976 3974 8939 3985 8922
4014 8916
A WEEK LATER: Turned out the damage was more extensive than I was able to ascertain Sunday night. Local media did a commendable job during the emergency, too, as I learned when we returned to Springfield. WMAY news director and talk show host Jim Leach stayed on the air 13 hours in the aftermath of the storm, turning in a "bravura performance" and "providing for most residents the only constant source of information about the bad weather," according to the alternative weekly Illinois Times. The State Journal-Register also distinguished itself, replacing the front page on its website at www.sj-r.com with a blog-like set of news summaries, links, accouncements and photos.
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