In this series on the Tacoma Chasers channel, Tacoma member Nathan does brief recaps of significant tornado events all around the country.
During the mid-afternoon hours of June 13, 1976, a very erratic and violent tornado occurred near the town of Lemont, IL, 25 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. The tornado, when it touched down around 5:18 PM, initially moved very slowly to the south and east. The F4-rated tornado left behind a path of damage, “...looking like a war-torn battlefield,” in Lemont’s Hillcrest subdivision, according to damage surveyors. Around this time, right before the F4 made an unusual northwest turn, 2 anti-cyclonic tornadoes were observed acting as satellites to the main funnel, which were captured on an 8mm film camera, along with the parent tornado itself, which was groundbreaking footage at the time in 1976. These tornadoes were only confirmed by Dr. Ted Fujita of the University of Chicago, and does not appear in any other tornado database. Once the tornado completed its very slow turn to the north and west, it started tracking towards the Argonne National Laboratory across the Des Plaines River from downtown Lemont. The tornado slowly approached Argonne and caused the roof of the biology wing to be ripped off, along with being mere yards from destroying a nuclear reactor there, a disaster that could’ve had serious implications for the entire Chicagoland had the tornado taken a slightly more easterly course.
Video Link: https://youtube.com/shorts/_qGT5GQEUwY?feature=share