PRESS RELEASE
V
ORTEK LLCMOST TORNADO-PRONE SPOT IN ILLINOIS IS NEAR BYBEE
January 8, 2008 Huntsville, Alabama
As part of an ongoing tornado research project, by means of the Site Assessment of Tornado Threat (SATT) 3.0 software, and based on National Weather Service data from 1950 through 2006, the VorTek staff have determined the most tornado-prone spot in Illinois, originally identified in May of 2003, remains at latitude 40o 32’ N, longitude 90o 07’ W, which corresponds to a location .098 miles west of Highway 16, 0.152 miles northwest of the crossing of Turkey Creek and Highway 16, 0.817 miles northwest of Bybee. During the 57-year period noted, 57 tornado track segments have touched down or passed within 20 miles of this point. This includes nineteen F0 tornadoes, twenty F1, eight F2, nine F3, and one F4. If the total land area disturbed by these tornadoes is divided by the land area within the 20-mile circle, on an annual basis the average fraction of land disturbed (or Annual Coverage Fraction) equals 1.041 x 10-3 or 0.1041%, which is the largest value for any point within Illinois.
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