Remodeling of the Deadly EF-5 Plainfield, IL Tornado Using The WRF

During the afternoon of 28 August 1990 a particularly violent tornado tracked across the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, IL killing 29 people, injuring over 300, and producing an incredible path of destruction. To this day, this tornado is still the only EF-5 intensity tornado to strike the United States during the month of August. While forecasts leading up to the event correctly identified a significant potential for severe thunderstorms, forecasts did not include a substantial tornado threat. In this study, the WRF-EMS system was initialized with data from the North American Regional Reanalysis prior to the event to determine if the WRF model may have provided clues prior to the event that the tornado potential was higher than originally forecast.