18 Years Ago: Chicago Metro Tornado Near-Miss

On June 7th, 2008 the more significant severe weather risk was located over portions of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Late May into early June 2008 was special, if you were a storm chaser living in the Midwest or Great Plains. From May 21st onward I had literally exhausted myself driving back and forth from the Plains to the Midwest and back successfully documenting numerous memorable tornado events.

By June 7th, I'd just returned home and was ready for a break. I turned down an opportunity to ride-along with my usual group of storm chasing friends who were headed out to Iowa for the day and decided I wanted a quiet day at home with a nap and a Cubs game on TV.

I held true to that through the early afternoon, but as I was checking on the chase out west in Iowa I couldn't help but notice a little boundary percolating in the early June sun across northern Illinois. There was a strong cap keeping a lid on things at the time, but an increasingly agitated cumulus field held my attention. Eventually, a couple blips on the radar got me out the door. One of my first early career "I don't trust that boundary" nowcasting successes.

A storm erupted on the boundary as I made my way north up Interstate 57, and as I made my first approach to the storm it was already producing a damaging, wedge tornado near Wilmington, Illinois.