Fierce storms with wind gusts exceeding 60 miles per hour ripped across Illinois late Friday, leading to a partial building collapse at a theater, a shelter-in-place announcement at O’Hare Airport and damage across numerous communities. NBC 5’s Vi Nguyen reports.
The National Weather Service on Sunday said two additional tornadoes struck northern Illinois Friday as severe storms rolled through, bringing the total of number tornadoes in northern Illinois and northern Indiana to 14.
The agency tweeted that it confirmed two more tornadoes from Friday's storms: an EF-0 tornado that moved through Montgomery and Aurora, along with a separate EF-0 tornado in Plainfield.
Following damage surveys and reports from storm spotters, the National Weather Service initially confirmed two tornadoes Saturday afternoon - one near Baileyville in Ogle County and a second near Caledonia, about 15 miles northeast of Rockford.
The NWS office in Chicago provided an update of its findings on Twitter later that night, saying a total of 12 tornadoes struck portions of the weather office's coverage area.
The following tornadoes, listed below with their measurements on the EF scale, had been confirmed as of late Saturday:
- EF-2 near Amboy
- EF-1 West Brooklyn
- Near Baileyville (rating TBD)
- EF-1 Machesney Park
- EF-1 Davis Junction to Belvidere
- Caledonia/Poplar Grove (rating TBD)
- EF-1 near Wellington
- EF-1 near Stockland
- EF-1 Lombard to Addison
- EF-2 near Oxford
- EF-2 near Fowler, Indiana
- EF-1 near Remington, Indiana
The NWS noted that the ratings are subject to change, and that it plans to investigate additional damage over the coming days in the following areas: Merrillville, Indiana, Batavia, Plainfield, Plano-Montgomery, Frankfort-Park Forest, Minooka-Channahon and other locations.
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"Several areas of potential tornado damage have yet to be investigated closely, though we should have some more info available after we conduct additional damage surveys today and tomorrow," the agency said Sunday.
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Numerous storms ripped across Illinois Friday, with a tornado resulting in one death from a theater collapse in Belvidere and a second storm killing three people in Crawford County.
