Though unusual, Illinois dust storms like the one Monday that caused a fatal pileup, are most common in May and June.
Monday's dust storm, which led to scores of car crashes and seven deaths on I-55 south of Springfield, was caused by a chain of extremely localized weather conditions that have been recorded only once in the Chicago area, weather experts said.
Jeffrey Frame, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, said Monday's storm was extremely localized, and it took several factors to line up to create those weather conditions. by signing up you agree to our terms of service Frame added that there is no concern that these types of events could increase in frequency in the future.
Another storm in June 1990 led to an accident that injured five people and closed I-57 from Arcola to Mattoon due to blowing dust. "Some of our counties may only have one observation site per county, so it's not a real network of visibility," Huettl said."It'd be great if we had visibility every mile or two to detect it better."
Huettl added that farmers are not required to stop plowing during a dust storm warning, though the office encourages them to stop if they can.
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