EF1 tornado in Champaign County, Illinois

A tornado touched down three miles south of Dewey at 7:39 PM CDT. The tornado tracked northeastward, causing significant damage to a business on US-136 between Fisher and Rantoul. It struck a few vehicles as it crossed I-57 before dissipating just south of the intersection of County Road 3400 North and County Road 1800 East about 1 mile south-southeast of Ludlow at 7:48 PM CDT.

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.