"We've had a couple of baseballs come down," Corey Gerken said during the live broadcast
NEED TO KNOW
- Fox Weather Storm Tracker Corey Gerken documented severe hail and storm damage while driving through Kankakee, Illinois, on March 10
- The National Weather Service confirmed multiple tornadoes across Illinois and Indiana, with two fatalities reported in Newton County, Indiana
- Tornadoes and severe weather were also reported in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas during the same storm system
One storm tracker in Illinois showed just how destructive, and loud, the massive hail that fell in the state amid severe weather this week could be.
In a live broadcast on Tuesday, March 10, Fox Weather Storm Tracker Corey Gerken filmed himself driving through Interstate 57 in Kankakee while the area was under a severe thunderstorm warning.
After being asked what it felt like to be in the "beast of a storm," Gerken said, "Yeah, we've had a couple of baseballs come down."
Emphasizing that the storm had been dumping hail on the area, viewers soon saw just how impactful the massive storm was in the moment as his windshield shattered after sustaining "two direct hits."
"This is just wild," said Gerkin, who went on the describe the sound of the large hail hitting as like being in a "giant pop can."
Another video clip shared on Fox Weather's X account showed just how damaged Gerken's windshield got in the storm
Meanwhile, an AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser in Illinois who measured one of the large hailstones that hit said “this is some of the biggest hail I’ve seen in quite some time.”
“This is ginormous,” said Tony Laubach, who said the hail left “craters” in the ground.
In fact, at 5.25 inches in diameter, one stone he measured in Kankakee was even larger than a previous stone that set a state record in 2015 – although the process of making that official can take up to years and would require proper freezing and storage by the NOAA's State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC).
Credit: Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty
In an update on Wednesday, March 11, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Chicago said a number of intense supercell thunderstorms traveled across northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana the previous day.
“One supercell was responsible for a family of tornadoes (at least 4) across Livingston and Kankakee counties in Illinois, and Newton, Jasper, and Starke counties in northwestern Indiana,” according to the agency.
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The Newton County Coroner's Office said that two people, identified at the time only as an elderly couple, were killed in a tornado in Indiana on Tuesday.
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