Tuesdays Chicago-area tornadoes werent normal. Heres why NBC Chicago [Video]

February tornadoes are rare in the Chicago area, but Tuesday’s outbreak was strange for more than just that, according to NBC 5 Storm Team meteorologists.

A number of unique things happened that made the evening tornadoes and stormy weather particularly unexpected.

“That’s stuff that you don’t see in the textbooks,” Meteorologist Pete Sack said.

The storms sparked in the early evening hours Tuesday, following a day of near-record warmth for the region, with temps reaching into the 70s and falling just shy of setting a record for the warmest February temps ever recorded in the city.

The storms moved from west to east, popping up consistently on a north-south line known as a “bow echo,” which according to the National Weather Service refers to how a band of storms “bow out” when strong winds “reach the surface and spread horizontally.”

Typically, with a bow echo, the strongest tornadic activity will spark on the curve of the bow and south. But Tuesday, …