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EF1 tornado in Tazewell County, Illinois

Tornado March 31, 2023 · Tazewell County, Illinois

EF1
Rating
0.9 mi
Path length
10 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 10 yards (0.01 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado touched down just west of the intersection of Dee-Mac Road and Harding Road 1 mile west of Deer Creek at 3:15 PM CDT. The tornado damaged a barn, then quickly dissipated in an open field 1 mile northwest of Deer Creek at 3:16 PM CDT.

The wider storm

Two rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms spawned 13 tornadoes across central Illinois during the afternoon and evening of March 31st...including an EF-3 tornado that killed 3 people in Robinson in Crawford County. The first round of convection developed along a warm front lifting northeastward through the area during the afternoon. These storms were primarily very large hail-producers, with up to baseball-sized (2.75 diameter) hail being reported in the town of Banner in Fulton County. Once the warm front lifted into northern Illinois, a modestly unstable but highly sheared environment was in place during the late afternoon and evening...with CAPE values of 1500-2500J/kg and 0-6km bulk shear in excess of 70kt. As a trailing cold front approached from the west, additional supercell thunderstorms developed that produced tornadoes, very large hail, and damaging wind gusts. The cells eventually congealed into a broken line as they pushed eastward to the I-57 corridor by mid-evening. Meanwhile, a discrete supercell ahead of the line tracked south of I-70, dropping the EF-3 tornado in Crawford County.

Began near Deer Creek (40.6300, -89.3500).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

12 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1083266. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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