Hoosier

The plexiglass guards are popping up here too. Haven't seen the tape yet.

Oregon, IL tornado rated EF1. 7 mile path.

DVN has confirmed several tornadoes.

So even worse than thought. But it is a good piece of info to have so as to not be alarmed when looking at the trends going forward.

Oof. Over 1100 new confirmed cases in IL since yesterday.

State of Indiana has started releasing the age breakdown of cases. Updated daily. Based on what I've read, the testing has been biased away from younger people/mild symptoms and more toward those with worse symptoms, especially with pre-existing conditions. So with that in mind, it is noteworthy to see this distribution. I think the word is slowly getting around that this isn't just an older person's disease and that younger people can get into real trouble too, even though fatality rates are much lower in people under 50 or 60.

Much quicker testing is supposedly on the way (results in minutes), but availability of those will be a question. Forgot to mention in my last post that there is a possible outbreak in the county jail here... but guess what, they haven't been able to get the tests yet.

Same here. My county also has the 2nd highest number of verified cases in Indiana now, not surprising since it is the 2nd most populated but it did start off slow. I wonder how much is under the surface here because Marion county (home of Indianapolis) has 2x the population but over 8x the number of confirmed cases.

Special weather statement for Cook county has the storm movement at 85 mph!

Cells to my west not looking too robust at this point but will keep watch. Pace of the warm frontal movement looks sufficient for a nonzero tornado threat into Chicago in the next couple hours.

Here's something you don't see every day in March. LAF has risen to 72 degrees this evening.

Warm front definitely making a more definitive push through here now... winds have kicked up.

That's what I was getting at. We probably would've been hearing about fatalities by now if it was going to be very big death toll. Hopefully nobody died.

Yeah, it's a good sign but it's still early. You know the ones that have multiple deaths reported almost right after the tornado passes are going to be really bad... like Joplin.

Gonna be near/over 500 US deaths today. Really should be putting to rest any questions about whether restrictive measures were necessary.

I think it's fair to say this won't be what it could have been in the IL area, but we'll see how much action we can manage to get. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Chicago/Romeoville, IL 451 PM CDT Sat Mar 28 2020 .MESOSCALE DISCUSSION... 451 PM CDT Starting to see some gradual intensification of the convection over western IL in the western fringes of the warm conveyor belt. Recent 21z sounding from ILX shows the presence of a very shallow cool surface stable layer beneath a stout inversion just below 925 mb. Convection developing within that warm conveyor belt is likely elevated, though radar and satellite trends suggest the storms in west central IL are probably growing closer to becoming rooted in the boundary layer. Given the widespread cloud cover, its looking unlikely that we will be able to erode the cap through insolation. However, increasing ascent associated with the approaching cyclone will likely gradually cool that warm layer through ascent leading to a better environment for storms to become rooted in the boundary layer. RAP suggests this ascent should erode the cap into our far west and southwestern CWA closer to the 23-00z time frame. There is still some threat for elevated storms with an attendant severe hail threat prior to this cap eroding. Once the cap is more eroded, the very favorable deep and low level shear environment will be quite favorable for tornadic supercells, given the presence of discrete cells. It seems likely that the current storms over west central IL will race quickly into an environment characterized by a fairly strongly stable boundary layer. However, any additional discrete cells that form either along the Pacific cold front or in the warm sector out ahead of the front that move into the area once the boundary layer inhibition is lessened in a couple hours will pose a more substantial tornado threat. The window for greater significant tornado potential over our CWA looks to be where the PDS tornado watch is in effect between 23z and about 01z or perhaps 02z. Beyond 01-02z, the potential for storms to become closer to boundary layer rooted into areas east and northeast of the current tornado watch will increase. However, some slight cooling of the boundary layer by mid-late evening could begin to limit the tornado potential. Given the dynamic nature of the system, cannot rule out temps getting a bit warmer than progged this evening and leading to a better tornado threat. Something to watch, but if latest RAP and HRRR are a perfect prog (unlikely) it would suggest that the tornado threat would be fairly low into the Chicago metro area and far NW IN. - Izzi

Numbers are underdone of course but now have almost 20 states reporting >1000 cases. I am guessing the actual number is 40 something.

Watching that evolution in real time was something. Wow.

Decently wide area of backed low level flow, though instability obviously lacking with northward extent.

One of the Illinois deaths is an infant.

File this under "hope I don't regret this" Late Friday afternoon, the city of Hammond announced that its first employee had tested positive for COVID-19. A Hammond police officer has tested positive for the virus, Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. said, while two others who were in close contact with that officer were sent home. The two other individuals won’t be ordered into quarantine, he said, because the city can’t afford to lose first responders at a time like this. "Just because you've been exposed but are not showing symptoms, I can't have them quarantined for two weeks," McDermott said. https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-indiana-coronavirus-update-0329-20200328-ke5pcj7qlfgqpemdxnagr6yehe-story.html

imo it will get through eventually, but maybe not until evening.

Went back and looked at radar from that day. Looks like there was a bit of morning activity but not much. I don't know what the cloud situation was.

It just struck me that March 28 is the centennial of the big 3/28/1920 outbreak. Not making a comparison between that event and this one, but there is something fitting about having a potentially potent severe weather setup falling on this day.

If it were me I might have curved the hatched tornado area a bit more to the southeast in northeast IL to put it JUST south of Chicago proper for now. Minor detail though. Tricky forecast for Chicago.