Despite little damage in Michiana, severe storms have devastated other states

Although we haven't seen much damage in Michiana from today's storms, not everyone has been so lucky.

Several reports of hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are coming from areas further to our west. Just one state over in Illinois, a tornado touched down in the city of Colona just before 10:00 AM CDT.

One gas station had its roof ripped off by the tornado, which has since received an EF-2 rating with 115 mph winds. The tornado was on the ground for just about one minute and traveled nearly half a mile. Although there were people inside the building at the time, there were no serious injuries.

The line of storms that brought this tornado to Colona was the same line that passed through Michiana this morning. Although we saw multiple severe thunderstorm warnings and a bit of small hail, the line was weaker by the time it reached our area thanks to thunderstorm development ahead of the line, using up some of the availible storm energy.

Further south, another, stronger tornado tore through southeastern Missouri around 3:30 AM CDT, leaving behind widespread destruction and killing at least 5 people.

One meteorologist from the National Weather Service estimated that the tornado was on the ground for approximately 15 minutes and travelled around 15-20 miles. Trees were uprooted and homes were destroyed.

This was a significant tornado in size and strength but was also especially deadly due to the time it struck. Nocturnal tornadoes - which are tornadoes that occur at night - are about twice as deadly as tornadoes that happen during the day. This is largely because most people are already asleep and therefore don't receive important warnings about oncoming storms.

That's why having multiple ways to receive weather alerts is so important. Whenever severe weather is in the forecast, it is vital to be prepared and stay weather aware.