Are tornadoes surging in Illinois? What you need to know

A couple in Northwest Indiana is dead after a tornado leveled their home this week.

Potentially record-sized hail pummeled Kankakee south of Chicago.

Here’s what you need to know about this extreme weather and how to keep yourself safe.

Are more tornadoes hitting Illinois and Chicago than in the past?

It's difficult to find year-over-year records but Illinois last year had more than 140 tornadoes, putting it neck and neck with Texas for the most of any U.S. state. And numbers across the country have been rising over the past 50 years.

Tornadoes have ripped through Illinois for more than a century. The deadliest tornado in U.S. history passed through Southern Illinois, Missouri and Indiana in 1925, killing almost 700 people.

Can tornadoes touch down in Chicago?

Yes, and they have. The Chicago area has recorded devastating tornadoes, including one that tore through Plainfield and nearby communities in 1990, killing 29, injuring hundreds and causing $165 million in damage.

While the most lethal and damaging twisters have taken place outside the city, they can hit anywhere. Lake Michigan can even make conditions for a potential storm worse in the summer.

How can I keep my family and I safe from such severe storms and tornadoes, in particular?

Stay informed if there are severe weather warnings in your area.

“Everybody should have a severe weather plan. Don’t be in a car and don’t be in a mobile home,” said Victor Gensini, director at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms at Northern Illinois University.

Don’t be lulled into thinking a twister can’t hit a city like Chicago, he said. It’s important to consider, he adds, that they’re relatively uncommon compared with thunderstorms, which can lead to widespread flooding.

“These are very rare events,” Gensini said. “Flooding is way, way more common.”

Are these storms and tornadoes caused by climate change?

Extreme heat is linked to climate change and strong thunderstorms are believed to be exacerbated by global warming. But the causes of tornadoes are more complex, according to Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford.

“There remains uncertainty of the extent to which climate change has caused these recent trends,” Ford wrote in a recent report. “However, it is thought the warmer and more humid climate in Illinois has had at least some effect on the increasing frequency in severe storm environments.”

Gensini, who witnessed the devastating tornado in Granville and Utica as a high school senior in 2004, agrees. But he said the trends are still pointing toward more severe weather.

“Regardless of climate change, the reality is that we're going to have more and more and more of these disasters,” Gensini said.

Is Illinois the new Tornado Alley?

The phrase is a “media colloquialism” coined in the early 1950s and is in no way an official designation, Gensini said.

“If I ask 100 of my meteorology friends to define, they’d each have a different answer,” he added.

According to some definitions, Illinois has actually been considered part of Tornado Alley for some time. Initially, the nickname applied to southwestern states that were ravaged by twisters in the 20th Century, including Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

But weather patterns over the past half century have pointed to a rising number of tornadoes east of the Mississippi River, including in Michigan.