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On January 9, 2008, a tornado struck northern Illinois, leaving a trail of damage from Poplar Grove (Boone County) all the way to Harvard (McHenry County). The timing of the tornado was just right as to run across some tracks right when a train was passing by. Thanks to a camera mounted on the train, we see what happens when a train battles a tornado: Mother Nature wins.
Thanks, Ted!
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wow, that's....creepy. Thanks, Chicagoist!
How rare are January tornadoes? I know you're not Tom Skilling or anything. It just seems odd to me.
According the stuff on the Nat'l Weather Service's page about the storms that we linked to, they said it was only the second January tornado in northern Illinois since they started keeping records in 1950.
Thanks, Marcus. I should've clicked through on the link.
no prob. i re-pimped the link because it's got some awesome info and amazing pictures, including one where you can see the derailed train.
I love how, if you watch the trees in the background, you can see it go from dead still to armageddon in the space of a few seconds. And then the tanker car appears out of the gray, barreling right at the camera.
Incidentally, a good portion of my hometown was demolished in an F3 tornado in January of 2000. I remember looking through the window about a half-hour before the storm hit and saying to a co-worker, "If it weren't January, I'd think this was tornado weather."