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Talk:1990 Plainfield tornado

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Something I've Been Meaning To Do

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The Lightning Stalker 05:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC) Guess what. I just found the book! Well, it's more like a magazine, but it has all the juicy details and lots of photos. $6 I guess they were profiting from the destruction.[reply]

When I find it, I have the book that was published by the Joliet Herald about the tornado. It has all the information that anyone would want about the storm. I could use some of it to flesh out the article a bit. The Lightning Stalker 08:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

...

Also, my family and I went on a drive along the entire damage path (and got a flat tire in the process). The corn field to the west of the wheatland plains subdivision wasn't harvested for several years and you could see where several small funnels first touched down and then converged before hitting the first house. I can still remember how for months you could see the distant black smoke rising from the piles of debris as it was being disposed of.

Although surely deserved of an entry, the way this is written is not really encyclopedic at all... the conversational tone, the "we will be ready". I think in some ways, it needs a re-write to fix that. Lyellin 02:37, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)

The article seems to be saying that Oswego, Illinois is in Dekalb County when it's in Kendall. I'm loath to edit it myself because, well, all I saw that day was a really black sky as I boarded my bus in Plano and I was unaffected by the disaster.

Is there anyone who was in Plainfield that day who wants to update this article?

~TJSwoboda

future page edit.

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Is it just me, or is the chronology slightly off? For example, one paragraph reads :

" At 3:30 p.m. CDT in Wheatland Township, the tornado damaged nearly all of the homes in a Wheatland Plains subdivision where there were several injuries but no fatalities. "

But two paragraphs later, it reads...

"The tornado struck Plainfield, Illinois around 3:28 p.m. Around 3:30 p.m. the tornado directly struck the Plainfield High School, killing three people, including a science teacher and two maintenance workers."


Plainfield is 4 or 5 miles SE from the Wheatland Plains subdivision, and given the direction the storm was heading, it would be impossible for the storm to have struck Plainfield two minutes earlier.


I wouldnt mind doing an edit of this page. I stumbled across it tonight somehow, and it only seems fitting for me to do an edit. I lived directly in the path of this storm, and can contribute many of my own photos and details.

T

Do it! An extensive article with pictures would be great...

TJSwoboda 05:09, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

not particularly... living through it was enough. the entry could use a little work, though. not everyone who was killed was from crest hill, for instance.

I've been adding hard reference and online source info to various articles, including this one. Eventually I would get around to rewriting it but others feel free to go ahead with whatever material available.
  • I've given it a good start. Don't have time to get more into the aftermath, but the Daily Herald had a good series of articles 10 or 15 years after the tornado. —Rob (talk) 03:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References

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I'd like to bring the article in line with the current ref/reference tags style outlined in Wikipedia:Footnotes. Any help is appreciated! —Rob (talk) 13:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Source

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I am modifying the following paragraph:

" After the tornado, meteorologists studying tornadic patterns in the area found that a major tornado (F3 or higher) strikes Will County about every 12 to 15 years. As there have been no major tornadoes since 1990, many meteorologists believe that statistically, a major tornado will strike within the next few years. "

to:

" After the tornado, meteorologists studying tornadic patterns in the area found that a major tornado (F3 or higher) strikes Will County about every 12 to 15 years. There have been no major tornadoes since 1990. "

Will County is not any more 'due' for another tornado in 2006 than it was in 1991.

Not that I'm going to change it back, but I don't really see the difference between the two sentences. Neither I nor the meteorologists that hold that opinion (there are at least two, but the sources are hard to find) are advocating a major tornado in Will County in the next N days/months/years. But it is okay to say that one is expected based on statistical analysis. —Rob (talk) 15:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, one shouldn't say that another tornado is expected based on statistical analysis, because it's not. If I flip a coin, which has a 1-in-2 chance of landing on either heads or tails, and I get 20 heads in a row, I'm not due for a tails. The coin is actually no more likely to land on tails than it is on heads- the chance is still 1-in-2. That said, one could say that since Will County is struck by a major tornado on average every 12-to-15 years, it is likely that they will get one within 12-to-15 years from today, not necessarily within 12-to-15 years from the date of the last tornado. --the anon again --172.164.108.116 23:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is a fine line between prediction and expectation, and I'm still firmly on the side of expectation. In the same way that we can say, "a major hurricane hasn't hit New Orleans in the last 45 years when, statistically, a category 2+ storm comes every 20 years", the probability of an event over time increases the longer time runs without the event occurring. —Rob (talk) 20:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
True, I was confusing the concepts of 'prediction' and 'expectation'. Another major tornado is expected based on statistical analysis. I just changed the sentence because I felt it gave the impression that meteorologists are saying "another major tornado is likely to strike soon because it hasn't happened in a while." --172.139.22.42 00:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC) (different IP due to AOL)[reply]
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Personal Experience

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Greetings, I'm an Amateur Radio operator who almost drove straight into the tornado. I wouldn't be here now if not for another Ham who tried to report this tornado via the local VHF repeater, but got no reply other than me at first. This may have been the first known report of the Plainfield tornado. There was no reply from NWS or any other official communicator. I can say that in the aftermath, hundreds of ham radio operators and other volunteers from the Salvation Army (headed by Major Pat MacPherson), the Texas Baptist Men, Red Cross and many more disaster relief agencies provided assistance with meals, communication and much more in the following weeks. Would it be appropriate to include this in the article, and how could I go about doing this the right way? 2602:306:8017:6840:ACA4:5098:1D:E3FF (talk) 05:02, 11 October 2021 (UTC)Megan, KF9AS[reply]

I'm a radio ham also, and personally know the eyewitness weather spotter who had been driving at the time out by the Greater Rockford Airport, now Chicago/Rockford Intl., who reported it to meteorologist Ron Fields at the KRFD NWS LFO [Local Forecast Office]. Her name is Diana White, NM9I, a report also confirmed via a Winn. Co. Sheriff's deputy out around Bypass 20. The rotating wall-cloud had already begun tornadogenesis and briefly dropped a confirmed tornado. Although no warnings were ever issued for it, he did alert Warnings Coordinator, Jim Allsopp at KLOT/Romeoville NWS LFO by picking-up a red phone with a direct-line in.

I was a ten-year-old kid at the time, but remember that day almost like no other and seeing the ominous thick, dark-green clouds and total calm before the storm. A lot of warm/cool air mixing and quite a lot of lift and incredibly high-CAPE values that day with a Jetstream just right. Rockinrockford (talk) 10:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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