When severe weather hits Illinois – like the storms last week – a network of weather stations across the state collects data to inform real time safety decisions.
The Illinois Climate Network consists of 20 monitoring stations across the state that collect data on temperature, wind speed, precipitation and other parameters. Officials dedicated the most recent station last week in Charleston, just a day before a tornado touched down about half a mile away.
Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign runs the network. One of its strengths compared to others is that it collects data every five minutes.
“We were sending the data to National Weather Service,” said Jennie Atkins, Manager of Water and Atmospheric Resources Monitoring Program, “and they could pull that with other to see what’s changing in real time.”
This network, also known as a mesonet, provides information to more than just Illinois, Atkins said.
“There are mesonets in Missouri and Iowa, so as systems are moving across the Midwest, they’re not only collecting data from us, they’re collecting it from our neighbors to the west,
she said. “And they’re collecting data from Illinois, which is helping the people in Indiana.”
But Atkins said there are still big gaps in the network, which is why Prairie Research Institute hopes to expand to 100 stations across the state.
“By having it closer to them, it’s going to provide more localized data, which is more meaningful to the communities and more helpful to the National Weather Service and others that are using the information,” she said.
Atkins said this data can save property and lives during severe weather events, especially as Illinois sees a massive increase in tornadoes.
The state typically averages about 54 tornadoes a year, but that number has skyrocketed since 2023, according to data from Prairie Research Institute. After tornadoes over the weekend that killed at least two people in southern Illinois, the state has surpassed 150 this year, State Climatologist Trent Ford said. That’s a new record for Illinois, which also leads the nation in number of tornadoes.