Chicago Becomes Center Of America’s Tornado Threat
While most people imagine tornadoes racing across the Kansas flatlands or inland Florida, it turns out that the most likely place in the US for severe tornado damage is Cook County, home of Chicago, the nation’s third largest city. Given the area’s concentrated population and economic interests, the destruction of a large tornado would be massive.
Fire Threats —Canada Forests
California Destruction— Air Pollution
RoofKnome published a new study titled. “2024’s Most Vulnerable Counties for Tornado Damage” The methodology considered tornado risk, home values, number of mobile homes, and estimated real estate loss.
There are 1,200 tornadoes each year in the US. The ones likely to do significant damage are tornadoes rated EF-1 through EF-5 tornadoes, based on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale. The study looked at 950 counties. Counties were given composite scores of 1 to 100. Cook County scored 84.19. The following two counties were in Texas–Harris (75.05) and Collin (70.81). The following two were in Missouri–St. Louis (66.43) and Jackson (64.06).
Cook County Size
One of the things notable about Cook County is its size. It ranks second among all counties in population at 5.1 million, behind only Los Angeles County at 10 million.
According to the National Weather Service, there is an increase in tornado activity in the US, particularly in some areas. .”Both tornado reports and environments indicate an increasing trend in portions of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.” Cook Country falls within that area.
Regarding climate change, Cook County and Chicago have been considered safe places to live. It is not likely to be a region that will suffer droughts, flooding, or hurricanes. It turns out the danger is from something else.
