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Mike Smith's avatar

After your impressive analysis of the forecast and warning failure pertaining to the Michigan tornadoes Friday, there was another HUGE warning failure yesterday evening at Kankakee.

https://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2026/03/inadequate-warning-of-kankakee-tornado.html

Within the last hour, storm chasers may have surfaced a hailstone larger than six inches.

Alan Gerard (Balanced Wx)'s avatar

Thanks, Mike - yes, I was watching in real-time and saw your analysis which seems quite on target. May be talking more about that aspect at some point.

Mike Smith's avatar

Following up on my first comment: NWS Chicago says the Kankakee Tornado began at 6:18pm. The tornado warning was issued at 6:16, so there was -- at best -- two minutes of lead-time in the tornado warning. https://x.com/NickKrasz_Wx/status/2031906171645227029/photo/1

The NWS's published lead-time goal is 13 minutes -- which 15 years ago was routinely attained -- but is rarely attained now. The 13 minutes was attainable in this case. Why it was not is unexplained.