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'No time to be complacent'

Posted March 29, 2015 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

Last week's taste of thunder and lightning was a reminder that storm season is gearing up in Illinois, which sees the bulk of its tornado activity during the months of April, May and June.

"The likelihood of tornado events will increase as we move through April and peak in May," said Greg Carbin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., in an interview with the Herald Tribune. "Things will probably start to pick up here."

Tornadoes in Oklahoma and Arkansas on March 25 put an end to what meteorologists termed a "tornado drought" across the nation. Before last week, only 24 tornadoes had been reported during a time period when roughly 120 is normal.

The last time the U.S. had a tornado-less March was nearly 50 years ago.

"What has been rather remarkable up until this past week was a severe weather drought," Carbin said. "The jet stream has not been configured in a way that would support tornado events."

But Carbin said there are indications - he didn't specify what those are - that the weather pattern suppressing storm activity will be changing.

"Climatology says that anyway, but I'm looking at some other things in terms of activity," he said.

One of the areas affected by last week's twisters was Moore, Okla., which was hit by an EF-5 in 2013 that killed 24 and injured 377 with peak winds of 210 mph.

"We've made ourselves more vulnerable to tornadoes," Carbin said. "What is puzzling is we go from very active years like 2011 to very inactive years like last year."

Charlie Bargman II, Chester's Emergency Management Agency Coordinator, said he believes people tend to get confused between watches and warnings.

"A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for a tornado to occur," he said. "A tornado warning means a tornado has been spotted by a trained spotter, or the NWS notices rotation on radar."

Bargman said the Chester Fire Department uses firefighters as spotters. The Chester Firehouse is also an emergency operations center for the department.

"It varies," he said, when asked how many firefighters are sent out in severe weather. "It depends on the location of the storms. We usually send them out in pairs."

Chester and Ellis Grove are two communities that have partnered with the CodeRED system that sends out telephone calls, text messages, emails and social media updates to inform residents about emergency situations.

The service is free to sign up and Chester residents can go to the city's website, www.chesterill.com, scroll to the bottom and click on the CodeRED logo to begin the signup process.

"It also has a mapping feature," Bargman said. "You can zoom in to certain areas of town to notify that specific area."

The service has two notification types - general and emergency. General notifications may apply to things like water main breaks.

"My opinion of this is I don't want to overload people to the point where they get complacent," Bargman said. "They can opt out of general notifications, but they can't opt out of emergency notifications.

"If (people) want to get out of the service, they can go online and delete their service. They don't have to receive notifications if they don't want to."

Bargman said there are 2,403 numbers on the call list, including businesses. He noted the city's fire and police departments also use CodeRED for in-house messaging.

In regard to outdoor sirens, Bargman said there is a difference between the sirens used for fire calls and those used for severe weather.

"On fire calls, the only one that sounds is on top of City Hall," Bargman said. "The tone goes up and down 10 times. The tornado sirens have steady blasts for three minutes."

Bargman said Chester's tornado sirens are in three locations - across from Chester Skateland, at the Chester Grade School water tower and behind Bert's Auto Service.

"They are outdoor warning only," he said. "They are not designed to be heard in structures."

According to the Storm Prediction Center, the 25-year average of tornadoes per state in Illinois (1989 to 2013) shows 12 in April, 15 in May and 10 in June. The number drops off dramatically after that, with an average of only three in July.

"It really only takes a day or two or three to put together the ingredients for a bad day," Carbin said. "It's no time to be complacent."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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