When skies are dark and cloudy, and rain is pouring down, it’s not uncommon to see someone watching the chaos from the comfort of their porch or right next to the window.
That’s the case even when warnings are urging people to seek shelter.
Illinois has already experienced a record-breaking number of tornadoes in 2026, but this year even thunderstorms are proving to be dangerous.
In mid-August, heavy rain and intense winds ripped through Bloomington-Normal, causing far more tree damage than from tornadoes the Twin Cities experienced in April.
A common refrain in the community and online was disbelief over the breadth of devastation, because it was merely a thunderstorm.
Joesph Trujillo-Falcón studies weather communication and public risk assessment of weather at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
He said every time someone receives a weather alert on their phone, or over TV and radio, they make a quick risk assessment. But if they have to make that assessment over and over again, they may be desensitized to the risk.
That’s why he argues for including five key components to each warning: a reliable source, a clear start and end time, as specific of a location as possible, a clearly described hazard and the risks associated with it.
There’s a difference between a warning and an alert, in Trujillo-Falcón’s mind. An alert interrupts your routine, but a warning tells you what you need to do.
“We have more alerts than we do warnings,” Trujillo-Falcón said, “and that’s why I think people are tired.”
“As more and more tornadoes are happening here, what will it take? How do we have to revise our messages to get the word out?” he said. “Let this year be a wake-up call that this may be more frequent in the future.”
Thunderstorm v. severe thunderstorms
State climatologist Trent Ford said even he can fall into the habit of dismissing flood or thunderstorm warnings.
“We give a lot of respect to tornadoes. We don’t necessarily give the same respect to severe thunderstorms, even though they can cause as much, if not even more damage,” he said.
Ford said the data does not show a strong increase in thunderstorms and hail year over year, but that there is evidence of flash flooding increasing because of more heavy rainfall. Thunderstorms and hail are affected by variability in the weather that can make it difficult to track trends over time.
“We sort of see thunderstorms as an everyday type of occurrence that 99% of the time is not going to cause any problems,” he continued.
The problem, he said, is equating that with severe thunderstorms. The National Weather Service [NWS] considers a thunderstorm severe when it can produce hail, 60-plus mph winds or a tornado.
Trujillo-Falcón pointed to impact based warnings from the NWS. Meteorologists add “tags” to damage estimates for weather warnings based on their severity. NWS can put out a “base” warning or add tags for “considerable” or “catastrophic” damage.
Lincoln NWS Meteorologist Rebekka Copple said catastrophic tags are when someone might receive an alert for a “tornado emergency.”
If certain tags are applied, it activates wireless emergency alerts for cellphones. Trujillo-Falcón said several county Emergency Management Agencies tie their siren and warning policies to those tags.
Copple said when the Aug.13 severe thunderstorm was moving through Bloomington-Normal, it was a base warning without any tags attached. As it moved further east, NWS upgraded the warning to a “considerable” tag.
However, the information in those tags is placed far down in the weather warning. For those listening on the radio, it takes several moments before they hear the damage threat tag. Valuable information is ahead of the tag, such as the locations of the weather event, the exact hazard and source and precautions the listener can take.
Over-warning and alert fatigue
Trujillo-Falcón said he believes some of the confusion around and dismissal of weather warnings come from not making the weather warnings and alerts simple and specific enough.
He said there can be a lot of scientific jargon in weather communication. Even the term “severe thunderstorm” is a technical distinction.
“We have a good way of identifying [severe weather] events physically,” Trujillo-Falcón said, giving credit to NWS meteorologists, “but the way we’re breaking it down to the public, it’s very hard to remember all that all at once.
“That’s why I always emphasize the need for plain language,” he continued. “I feel like as of right now, [warnings] do contain a lot of jargon which explains why the public may not be resonating with it as much.”
Trujillo-Falcón said his team’s research found warning fatigue isn’t necessarily connected to the frequency of warnings but how repetitive or ineffective they are.
On the other hand, Trujillo-Falcón said some aspects of over-warning and alert fatigue are myths. For example, there isn’t as much of a “cry wolf” effect as one would expect.
Named after the ancient fable where a boy falsely warned of a wolf and then wasn’t believed when one actually arrived, a cry wolf situation is when a weather warning is issued but the weather event never materializes.
“People who perceive higher false alarm rate are more likely to shelter counterintuitively,” Trujillo-Falcón said. “At first glance it might not seem like it, but people are willing to receive multiple alerts, only if they are effective and they tell them what to do.”
Trujillo-Falcón said researchers have identified a model of behavior most people engage in after they hear a weather warning. Part of that includes verifying the information for themselves by looking outside, or pooling information from social media or live broadcasts.
Each minute spent verifying the threat is time that could be used to find shelter, he said.
It’s a known problem in the meteorological community. The NWS is streamlining alerts to simpler language through a hazard simplification program. For instance, “winter weather advisory,” becomes a one-word weather event followed by a short statement describing the impacts.
“SNOW: Hazardous travel from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m.” is an example from NWS.
“Excessive heat watch,” has changed to “extreme heat watch,” as another example.
What about the sirens?
McLean County’s Emergency Management Agency [EMA] Director Cathy Beck said the sirens were not activated in mid-August because the storm did not reach the right criteria.
Beck said sirens are activated if winds are 70 mph or more. The winds produced by the microburst were close, but never topped the number.
Trujillo-Falcón said some communities have forgone sirens altogether and that their effectiveness really depends on the community.
“Sirens are only one kind of way to receive warnings,” he said, noting that sirens are meant to be heard outside and not while someone is indoors. “We should have multiple ways of receiving [alerts].”
However, he said the benefit of having local control of the sirens is that the community can customize it to their needs. If someone thinks the sirens should go off in certain situations, he encourages them to talk to their EMA director.
“I think it’s a good time, especially as severe weather is running more rampant in Illinois, for communities and their local emergency management agencies to have conversations about this,” he said. “Let’s agree upon ‘what does a siren really mean for my community and what should I be looking out for?’”
“Having those conversations can help the EMA know what the county really needs,” he continued.
Connecting tornadoes to climate change
Illinois’ climate is changing.
State Climatologist Trent Ford said his office has been sharing that message for years. Summertime humidity has increased decade over decade, he said. Winters have warmed consistently as well.
So far in 2026, the state has seen 210 tornadoes, far outpacing the previous record of 142 tornadoes for all of 2024.
It’s the fourth straight year of more than 100 tornadoes in Illinois.
Ford said that seems to align with the theory that tornado alley is moving east and that there are more tornadoes overall. Trujillo-Falcón even calls it “tornado-cornfield alley” in his disaster communication classes.
“It’s a lot more complicated and less certain as far as what the future holds,” he said.
Recent decades show an increase in tornadoes in Illinois, but not by the large leap seen in 2026.
That increase is combined with more heat and humidity in Illinois, and warming winters. While some of those weather events can be attributed to climate change, it’s more difficult to do so for tornadoes.
Part of the reason is the scope of the data. Ford said technology has improved and meteorologists are better able to observe and track smaller tornadoes.
“We missed most small tornadoes or a lot of small tornadoes in the [1950s], '60s and '70s,” he said.
Another reason it’s hard to confirm climate change is causing more tornadoes is because of a limitation in computer modeling.
Meteorologists use computer models to help predict future weather events. Researchers can create “control group” models by removing conditions they know are from human-caused climate change.
Those models are effective for tracking heat, but not as much for tornadoes. That’s because Ford said they are a relatively small weather event, despite their large impact.
“It’s a really hard dance to do here, because we don’t want to overexaggerate or provide some overly confident message that climate change is causing more tornadoes, because we don’t have enough evidence to say that conclusively,” he said.
Instead of climate change, increased tornadoes in 2026 could be due to weather variability. Any weather that makes its way to Central Illinois is the product of atmospheric conditions around the world.
“[It’s] more a function of what the ocean, atmosphere and land conditions are, not just here in Illinois, but globally,” Ford said. “What does the Pacific Ocean look like? What are our pressure patterns at?”
Ford said a high-pressure system in the southern plains helped brew up the storms that swept through Central Illinois day after day in mid-August, culminating in intense rain and wind on Aug.13.
“Some years we have those conditions more often, some years we have them less often,” Ford said.
