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Thursday, November 15, 2012 - 12:30AM CST

2012: Year of the I-64 corridor tornadoes

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

Since 2001, I-64 has been by far my favorite highway. Well-traveled (58 times so far from STL to KY/WV), it's taken me west from West Virginia to the Great Plains to see tornadoes, and finally to my new home in the St. Louis metro. But in 2012, this highway - specifically the corridor 50 miles north and south of it from West Virginia to St. Louis - has had a remarkable year of tornadoes itself. The following map from the SPC shows all tornado reports so far this year in the US, with the concentration along I-64 standing out prominently:

US tornado reports through November 13 (Source: SPC)

While the I-64 corridor is well within the Midwestern 'Tornado Alley' and sees a few events each year, the number of tornadoes along it this year is quite impressive. Here is a breakdown of the events:

January 17 - Indiana/Kentucky - Tornadoes of up to EF2 intensity struck in and around the Louisville metro area. [ SPC reports ]
February 29 - Harrisburg, Illinois EF4 - In addition to the pre-dawn Harrisburg tornado, several more damaging early-morning tornadoes hit western and central Kentucky. [ SPC reports ]
March 2 - Henryville, Indiana EF4 and West Liberty, KY EF3 - This corridor's biggest day this year was of course March 2, with several long-track supercells producing numerous tornadoes across Indiana and Kentucky, the most significant occuring in within 50 miles of I-64. [ SPC reports ]
March 23 - Opdyke, Illinois EF2 - Several tornadoes occured in a cold-core regime in southern Illinois, with the deadly Opdyke tornado crossing I-64 near the Belle Rive exit east of Mount Vernon. [ SPC reports ]
May 1 - Indiana tornadoes - While the 'main event' of this day was in the Champaign, IL area, one tornado occured near the Louisville metro area. [ SPC reports ]
June 29-30 derecho - While not tornadic, this was one of the most damaging and high-impact convective severe weather events to ever strike the central Appalachian region. The derecho affected the I-64 corridor across West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and central Virginia. [ SPC reports ]
August 31 - St. Louis area tornadoes - The remnant circulation of Hurricane Isaac produced several tornadoes north of I-64 at St. Louis in Missouri and Illinois. [ SPC reports ]
September 25 - Okawville, Illinois EF1 - This tornado crossed I-64 twice at Okawville, flipping tractor-trailers at both points. [ SPC reports ]