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EF1 tornado in Sangamon County, Illinois

Tornado August 6, 2023 · Sangamon County, Illinois

EF1
Rating
25.3 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Sangamon County → Christian 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 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 3 miles north of Pawnee at 6:09 PM CDT. It caused minor roof damage and blew down several trees before it crossed into Christian County just north of the intersection of Pawnee-New City Road and Skaggs Road at 6:13 PM CDT.

The wider storm

A vigorous short-wave trough interacted with an approaching low pressure system and associated warm frontal boundary to trigger clusters of strong to severe thunderstorms across west-central Illinois during the late afternoon of August 6th. Due to enhanced low-level wind shear along and north of the warm front, many of the cells began rotating and spinning up occasional funnel clouds. One of the cells intensified as it pushed into Sangamon County, producing a long-track tornado that was on the ground for over 25 miles from just north of Pawnee in far southeastern Sangamon County to southeast of Stonington in Christian County. The tornado produced EF-1 damage along much of its path, peaking with EF-2 damage just south of Willeys in Christian County. This particular thunderstorm cell dropped 2-inch diameter hail north of Taylorville and went on to produce a downburst with 80 mph wind gusts in far eastern Shelby County near Lake Mattoon. The storms eventually congealed into a line as they pushed into eastern Illinois later in the evening, with scattered wind damage, hail, and flash flooding.

Began near Beamington (39.6341, -89.5702).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1130541. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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