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Monday’s Derecho Packed a Park Forest Tornado


The Park Forest Derecho Tornado
The path of the Park Forest derecho tornado, August 10, 2020. (NWS Chicago)

Park Forest, IL-(ENEWSPF)- The National Weather Service in Chicago announced Wednesday that the derecho thunderstorm that struck Park Forest Monday afternoon brought with it an EF-0 tornado.

The twister, which touched down at 3:37 PM just south of Steger Road east of Central Park Avenue, spun with winds up to 85 MPH, traveling two miles east-by-northeast, crossing Sauk Trail just west of Orchard Drive, continuing over Cherry Street, through the Pangea Park Townhomes, winding through Cedarwood Cooperative, and finally dissipating somewhere inside Schubert’s Woods Forest Preserve.

The windstorm reached a max-width of 350 yards, the National Weather Service determined. While it caused ample damage to the landscape and some homes, there were no serious injuries reported and no deaths.

A meteorologist with the National Weather Service told eNews Park Forest someone from the NWS came to Park Forest and surveyed the damage to trees.

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“Based on the type of tree damage that we saw” the NWS determined that a tornado was responsible, the meteorologist told ENEWSPF.

The path the twister took likewise was determined by the on-site observations of this same meteorologist who surveyed the damage by car.

The National Weather Service determined that 11 tornadoes punched the Chicagoland area during Monday’s derecho event.

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