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The public record 1996 to today

Illinois wind history

The public federal storm record holds 2,045 days with wind on record somewhere in Illinois since 1996, 1,518 of them at 58 mph or more, across 61,107 reports. The strongest on record is 120 mph sustained on 6 May 2003. 327 cities have wind on record within 10 miles of their centre, and each has a page that says what was searched, which storm days more than one source carried, and how far away the nearest instruments stood. The hail family has its own index: Illinois hail history.

2,045

Days with wind on record, statewide

1,518

Days at 58 mph or more

120mph

Strongest measured, May 2003

327

Cities with wind on record nearby

Wind by city in Illinois

Ranked by days with wind on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population, each with its strongest figure: measured in the observed tone, an estimate in the estimated tone. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.

  1. 01 Chicago 445 days 96 mph
  2. 02 Winthrop Harbor 335 days 113 mph
  3. 03 Oak Park 327 days 96 mph
  4. 04 Zion 315 days 113 mph
  5. 05 Cicero 308 days 96 mph
  6. 06 Forest Park 287 days 96 mph
  7. 07 Lincolnwood 282 days 96 mph
  8. 08 North Aurora 277 days 97 mph
  9. 09 River Forest 277 days 96 mph
  10. 10 West Chicago 275 days 96 mph
  11. 11 Berwyn 274 days 96 mph
  12. 12 Warrenville 272 days 96 mph
  13. 13 Roselle 269 days 96 mph
  14. 14 North Riverside 269 days 96 mph
  15. 15 Batavia 266 days 97 mph
  16. 16 Stickney 266 days 96 mph
  17. 17 Winfield 265 days 96 mph
  18. 18 Aurora 264 days 97 mph
  19. 19 Carol Stream 264 days 96 mph
  20. 20 Westchester 262 days 96 mph
  21. 21 Morton Grove 261 days 96 mph
  22. 22 Bloomingdale 260 days 96 mph
  23. 23 Norridge 260 days 96 mph
  24. 24 Wheaton 258 days 96 mph
  25. 25 Harwood Heights 256 days 96 mph
  26. 26 Hillside 255 days 96 mph
  27. 27 Lombard 254 days 96 mph
  28. 28 Riverside 254 days 96 mph
  29. 29 Broadview 254 days 96 mph
  30. 30 Glendale Heights 253 days 96 mph
Every place in Illinois (327)

Wind days by year in Illinois

Days with wind At 58 mph or more

The busiest year on record is 2024, with 85 days of wind, 64 of them at 58 mph or more.

Strongest wind recorded in Illinois

Measured Estimated, not measured

Strongest wind recorded in Illinois: date, wind speed, whether it was a gust or a sustained speed, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Speed Reading Evidence County
06 May 2003 120 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Gust Ground observation HAMILTON
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Gust Ground observation WHITE
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Gust Ground observation WHITE
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
19 Apr 2011 120 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
29 Jun 2023 120 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
The next step

Get the wind report for an address in Illinois

The figures on this page are the record across Illinois: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: every wind report with its distance and bearing from the roof, the nearest station's readings, the analysis grid sampled at the address and labelled as analyzed, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

What counted
Every wind report in the archive filed under Illinois by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A wind day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of wind, not four. A report's figure is its gust where it has one and its sustained speed otherwise, and the tables say which.
Measured and estimated
A speed reported by a person or an instrument on the ground, whether read from an anemometer or judged by an observer from what the wind did, is filed as observed; a speed inferred from a grid or an analysis is an estimate and is marked as one. The two are never added together.
Severe
A day counts as severe when its strongest figure reached 58 mph, the National Weather Service criterion for a damaging gust. Weaker wind is still on the record, and still on this page.
Stations
A station reading is the wind at the instrument, not at any address, and is listed with the distance from the page's centre to the instrument. Readings are fetched for the ground around an address when a report is run and held afterwards, so the stations on a page are the ones within 30 miles that the archive holds readings from.
What this is not
Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about what reached one.
Terms used on this page
Peak gust, sustained wind, independent source: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
The record
Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 1 November 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.