Tornadoes confirmed in Friday night storms
Four tornadoes from Friday night’s storms – including two in Lake County – have been confirmed by the National Weather Service (NWS).
The tornado warnings were sounded in Lake County at approximately 1:13 a.m. March 15 when a severe thunderstorm which was capable of producing a tornado was spotted over Cedar Lake heading northeast at 50 mph, according to the NWS.
The tornado was determined to be an EF-1 the following day. It caused some damage on the west side of Cedar Lake. Several houses were damaged in the vicinity of 134th Avenue and Osborne Street, according to Cedar Lake Fire Department chief Todd Wilkening.
The awning at the Casey’s General Store located at 10405 W. 133rd Avenue sustained damage to the awning over the fuel pumps. While the store remained open on Saturday morning, the fuel pumps were not in operation. Other area businesses sustained damage to roofs and windows as a result of the storm.
Wilkening said he saw lots of trees down and utility poles snapped after the storm, which caused some power lines to go down. He said his department received at least 20 calls for service after the storm. However, Wilkening said there were no injuries reported.
An EF-0 tornado was confirmed in the Merrillville and Schererville area. The storm hit those areas at approximately 1:20 a.m. March 15. According to a spokesman from the Schererville Fire Department, they received no storm-related calls for service from Friday’s weather event.
The two other confirmed tornadoes were reported in Yorkville, Illinois, and Bartlett and Hanover Park, Illinois, both of which were classified as EF-0. There were “multiple corridors of straight-line wind damage” also observed in Illinois in eastern DeKalb County, western Kane County and in Elgin, according to the NWS.
The NWS reported a line of thunderstorms across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana from the late Friday evening into early Saturday morning, and “widespread damaging winds were observed with this line of thunderstorms, which produced a handful of relatively brief tornadoes in the local area
According to the NWS, winds at Midway Airport in Chicago were recorded to be at 32 mph with gusts of up to 46 mph at 2:13 a.m. March 15, approximately one hour after the tornadoes came through northwest Indiana. Valparaiso saw wind speeds of approximately 26 mph with gusts of 41 mph.
The NWS stated a “strong low pressure system produced two separate periods of strong non-thunderstorm winds” on Friday and Saturday, and most locations observed top wind gusts between 40 to 50 mph during those periods, and possibly higher gusts could have been observed on the local level.