For quite a few days, weather forecasters had been warning of a strong low pressure system brewing out West, eventually to make its way across the Midwest. Over the years, I’ve observed that forecasters tend to overemphasize the worst-case scenarios, probably so listeners will heed their warnings. So, being slightly skeptical of the dire predictions, I left the focus of my attention elsewhere. But once the system moved east of the Rocky Mountains, its strength was undeniable, spawning the gamut of bad weather, including dust storms reminiscent of the 1930s’ Dust Bowl, thunderstorms, golf ball-sized hail, and tornados.
National Weather Service (NOAA) radar showed the system moving quickly over the Great Plains with the worst weather concentrated within a narrow arc spanning several states from north to south. No one had used the term “derecho” yet, but it certainly had the signs of what has been referred to as an inland hurricane (a fast-moving thunderstorm front with straight-line winds approaching 100 miles per hour). Once the system reached eastern Kansas, I closely tracked its movements across Missouri; and as it got closer to Illinois, I knew the exact time it would hit our vicinity (rural Macomb) and how long it would last.
While I waited, I thought about early European-American settlers and the Native Americans before them, exposed to the elements, not knowing what to expect from the weather much beyond what they could plainly see. Surely, though, they would have been able to make certain rough predictions based on the experiences of their elders and interpreting signs around them. I imagined a family camping around a covered wagon on a late winter day similar to the day of our impending storm, when the morning and afternoon were clear and sunny, with the temperature topping out at 83o F, and south winds blowing steadily at 35 miles per hour. Anyone remotely paying attention would likely conclude that change, or something, was on the way. And I would imagine those early Illinoisans, with their lives possibly at stake, gave full attention to the weather. Being caught unawares on the open prairie during a thunderstorm with lightning striking the ground might have forced them to flee a wind-driven prairie fire (the red buffalo); winter storms from the north with deep drifting snow followed by sub-zero temperatures could mean certain death. A tornado might be avoided by heading in the opposite direction of its path. But a wide-ranging system like the one I was expecting in the evening would have been unavoidable. I was glad to be living at the present time and not three hundred years before. And so, I relaxed in front of my computer, with new batteries in the flashlights, comfortable knowing what was coming, even if it was bad news. By late afternoon, the storm front was still over two hours away. I cracked open a beer.
As evening set in, high winds from the south gradually increased in ferocity, with strong gusts picking up leaves and small debris that barely settled before again being thrust aloft and redistributed across our property. The tops of the largest trees continually swayed back and forth, testing tensile strengths built up over decades. But it wasn’t until around 8:30 pm that radar showed the abrupt storm front, colored in deep red (red = bad), advancing upon the outskirts of Macomb, nearly on top of our home. At 8:45 pm, chaos was upon us. Outside was darkness; so, all we could do was listen to the screaming, wailing, rustling, and cracking. Within minutes, an emergency weather alert appeared on my smartphone: our county was under a tornado warning. We were advised to seek shelter, but I could see from the radar that the actual rotation was south of Macomb and moving to the east-northeast: it would pass us by, and so I stayed at the computer with its live updates. I expected a power outage at any moment. And if that happened I planned to make my usual announcement to my wife that when the power goes out, the toilet has one flush left until power returns (being on a rural, private well just outside of town, our water pressure is dependent upon an electric pump). Fortunately, we have three toilets, and I had reserved four gallons of water in jugs as backup; after that, I emphasized to her, you’re on your own. Since it had been unseasonably warm—probably part of the reason for the storm system’s intensity—we would not freeze without heat.
In the end, the rotation never touched down as a tornado and soon was far to the east of us. A half hour after the storm’s sudden arrival, the worst had passed, the power stayed on without the slightest flicker, and we were in the clear.
The next morning, we ate breakfast with the sun shining and, except for a fallen tree in the woods, found no damage to our home or the immediate area; our yard was strewn with a few small branches, but not much more than usual. From the limited perspective of our home and property, the big storm was rather a dud (we never even had hail), but I soon saw news reports showing that elsewhere it was as bad as predicted, maybe worse. We had been lucky, a simple matter of randomness: the winds shifting here, ebbing there, gusting toward a particular direction, perhaps influenced by local topography or some other factor; the worst aspects of the storm missed us. It was a good illustration of the reason forecasts are given in terms of probabilities, the chances of what might happen based on previous similar conditions; because no one knows exactly what will happen, no matter how much technology and computer modeling.
Our brief taste of summer temperatures was gone with the wind, and forecasters were predicting light snow overnight. The not unusual March weather.
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