We haven't seen much bad weather in the United States lately, but this country hasn't been so lucky in the past August.
August 28, 1990, 35 years ago today, the F5 tornado was running in two northern Illinois counties on the southwest edge of Chicago.
That afternoon, Twister tore a 16-mile path through parts of Plainfield and Crystal Lawns. 29 people were killed and 350 were injured.
The violent tornado was as wide as half a mile, causing $160 million in damage, 470 homes were destroyed and 1,000 people were damaged, according to the National Weather Service.
Apart from high-end strength, this tornado is unique in both ways.
First, according to the NWS, it was covered in low clouds and rain, so no video or photos of the actual tornado was taken.
Second, lightning activities are all based on high-altitude positively charged strikes, reducing cloud-to-ground lightning as the tornadoes form, and then gathering lightning near the tornado at maximum intensity is the subject of a fascinating study published three years after it was published in the tornado.
Aerial view of the damage path of the F5 tornado through Plainfield, Illinois, August 28, 1990.
(NOAA/NWS-Romeoville, Illinois)
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at Weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and strange weather are his favorite topics. Contact him Bruceky,,,,, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.