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EF2 tornado in Logan County, Illinois

Tornado March 31, 2023 · Logan County, Illinois

EF2
Rating
21.0 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Sangamon County → Logan County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

This tornado crossed into southern Logan County from Sangamon County at 6:32pm CDT. It continued northeastward across mainly open fields damaging farm outbuildings and causing shingle damage to several homes in the town of Latham before it dissipated on the south side of Latham at 6:46pm 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 Cornland (39.9176, -89.3530).

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 1088253. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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