EF0 Tornado — Jasper, Illinois

2023-03-31 · near St Marie, Jasper, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down in a field southwest of the intersection of East 390th Avenue and North 1700th Street about 2 miles southwest of Sainte Marie at 8:58pm CDT. The tornado tracked northeastward, causing sporadic tree damage before crossing into western Crawford County between East 500th Avenue and East 600th Avenue at 9:03pm CDT.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.9018, -88.0604)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1088281. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.