April 7, 1948 Tornado Outbreak IL/IN

[Hoosier]

Today is the 75th anniversary of a tornado outbreak that affected Illinois and Indiana.  Only 6 tornadoes were documented, but keep in mind that weaker tornadoes were not really recorded back then so the actual total from that day is undoubtedly higher, possibly by quite a bit.

Here are some images from that day.  One is a 500 mb plot from that morning, one is a surface map from mid afternoon and one is a map of the approximate tornado tracks.  All of these are courtesy of bangladeshtornadoes.org, which is a fantastic resource for significant tornado events.  Finally, I provided a photograph of one of the tornadoes -- the F4 that crossed from IL into IN.  This is one of the first photographs that clearly showed a multi-vortex tornado.

At least some of the tornado tracks are a bit off.  For example, the tornado that is shown crossing over Lake Michigan did not do so.  It was a bit farther south and passed a couple miles south of the lake.  But you get the general idea.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Hoosier