DATES

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION & HOMEWORK

Topic: Severe Summer Weather (thunderstorms, tornadoes, derechos, heat waves, drought NOT HURRICANES)

Homework/discussion questions: Explain!

• Which types of severe summer weather risk are you willing to live with? What level of risk from severe summer weather is acceptable to you? Why?
•  How would you know if the severe weather risk was assessed accurately? What are the characteristics of a good severe summer weather risk assessment? (You need to address two aspects: 1) How we know what to expect most years? and 2) How is the near-term weather forecast developed?)
• What should be done by people and communities to prepare for severe summer weather hazards and prevent catastrophe?

• What factors influence the impact of severe summer weather?
• How do severe summer weather hazards vary from place to place? Why?

1. In what ways is severe summer weather predictable?
2. To what other hazards is severe summer weather linked?
3. What are the potentially disastrous consequences of severe summer weather?
4. In what ways has human activity made severe summer weather hazards catastrophic?
5. How can the hazardous consequences of severe summer weather be minimized?

RESOURCES

Notes: View slides | download PowerPoint

Text:

• Chapter 9 (focus on SUMMER weather)
• Chapter 10 (extratropical cyclones: p. 338-343)
• Chapter 12 (how is climate change likely to impact severe summer weather)

Recommended Activities

• Look through NWS severe weather history and reports for your area:
  • NOAA Storm Events Database (search by county and event type for the entire U.S.)
  • Event Summaries for the Chicago region (scroll to bottom of page for links to event summary pages for other regions)
  • Tornado and Severe Weather Climatology for Northern Illinois (click on County Maps tab for links to historic tornado info specific to a county
  • Tornado Climatology for Central and Southeast Illinois

Articles

• The Past 3 Years Have Been the Three Hottest on Record (Jan 2026 story)
• Scientists say large hail will become more common in warming climate (NIU press release)
  • Dr. Victor Gensini, lead author, is a graduate of Puntam Co HS and IVCC!
  • Grapefruit-sized hail? Climate change could bring giant ice stones (USA Today article)
  • Scientific Journal Article: Hailstone size dichotomy in a warming climate
• Why the weather forecast will always be a bit wrong
• Bridging the Weather-to-Climate Prediction Gap
• New Lessons from Old Ice: How We Understand Past (and Future) Heating
• Severe Storms
  • The Surprising Factor Making the United States a Tornado Hot Spot
  • Tornadoes' Fastest Winds Howl Close to the Ground
  • Hail Causes the Most Storm Damage Costs Across North America
  • How Hail Hazards Are Changing Around the Mediterranean
  • Ice from Above: Toward a Better Understanding of Hailstorms
  • A New Tornado Database Helps Researchers Worldwide
• Drought
  • Drought is quietly pushing American cities toward a fiscal cliff
  • Long-Term Drought Harms Mental Health in Rural Communities
  • Flash Droughts Are Getting Flashier
  • Modeling the Past, Present, and Future of Drought
  • “Thirstwaves” Are Growing More Common Across the United States
• Heat Waves
  • New Tool Maps the Overlap of Heat and Health in California
  • Mapping Heat Vulnerability to Protect Community Health
  • Record High: Dispatches from the Era of Extreme Heat
  • How 2021's floods and heat waves are signs of what's to come
  • Marine Heat Waves Can Exacerbate Heat and Humidity over Land
  • Specifically Tailored Action Plans Combat Heat Waves in India
  • The Inequality of Heat Stress
  • Heat kills, but it doesn't have to: How the government can help
  • Temperature Extremes Hit Lower- and Middle-Income Countries Hardest

August 2020 Derecho

• NWS Quad Cities Event Report
• NWS Chicago Event Report
• NPR: Derecho This August Was Most Costly Thunderstorm Event In Modern U.S. History

On-line resources:

• National Weather Service: https://www.weather.gov/
  • Enter your city, state or zipcode in the box on the top left. Explore the forecast page and click links to see what kind of information they provide. It is especially useful to follow the "forecast discussion" link to see what the NWS meteorologists think about the forecast they have posted.
  • Click on the local forecast office name (Chicago, Lincoln, Quad Cities) near the top. For past events, hover your cursor over "Climate and Past Weather" and click on the link to "Event Summaries"
• more National Weather Service
  • Storm Prediction Center
  • Climate Prediction Center
  • Tornado and Severe Weather Climatology for Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana
  • Weather Radio
  • U.S. Hazards Assessments
  • Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the NWS WSR-88D
• Illinois State Water Survey, Center for Atmospheric Science
  • State Climatologist This website has a lot of information about various severe weather phenomena in Illinois including risk assessments, maps, and lists of historical events.
  • Rethinking short-term droughts in Illinois
• NOAA Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC)
  • Tornado Tracks Tool
• Drought Monitors
  • National Drought Mitigation Center
  • Drought.gov
  • NWS
  • xkcd: California Droughts
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
  • extreme heat
  • thunderstorms
  • tornadoes
• National Geographic Society
  • 101 videos: check out "tornadoes" and "thunderstorms"
• Centers for Disease Control
  • Natural Disasters and Severe Weather
• NOAA - Severe Storms Lab
  • Severe Weather 101
• American Red Cross
  • How to Prepare for Emergencies
• Illinois Emergency Management Agency
  • Severe Weather Preparedness
• U.S. Tornadoes (.com)
• Tornado Archive
• Risk Factor (provides estimates for flood, wildfire, and extreme heat risk)

Tornado Videos!!! (from June 5, 2010)

• The tornadic storm approaches: tornado1 (looking west from my house)
• My neighbor got some video as welll: tornado 1.5 (Looking south at the wall cloud seen in my 1st video, this video was made between my first and second videos.)
• The tornado hits : tornado 2 (looking SW from my back door)
• As did a storm chaser: tornado chaser (Video begins with the view from the west, looking east toward my house. Note the wall cloud from which the tornado emerges is the mirror image of what you see in the first video. The destroyed grain bin is at my neaighbor to the east; the remainder of the video was taken elsewhere.)

NASA Science News for May 6, 2011 On Wednesday, April 27th, Science@NASA writer Dauna Coulter found herself near ground zero as a super-outbreak of tornadoes ripped through north Alabama. This is the story about the event she wrote and submitted from within the disaster zone. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/06may_tornado/