Home / Illinois / Clay

EF2 tornado in Clay County, Illinois

Tornado May 26, 2024 · Clay County, Illinois

EF2

Rating

9.4 mi

Whole path

300 yd

Path width

$10.0M

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 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 originally touched down in Marion County in the National Weather Service Saint Louis County Warning Area (CWA), then crossed into southwestern Clay County just north of the intersection of Beard Road and Songer Township Lane at 7:35 PM CDT. It knocked down several trees and power lines before tracking northeastward and doing its greatest damage at a farm on the north end of Penguin Drive where several large metal buildings were demolished. The tornado then lifted just east of Xenia-Iola Road between Songer Township Lane and Hickory Hill Lane at 7:43 PM CDT.

The wider storm

Supercell thunderstorms developed along an outflow boundary from central Missouri into south-central Illinois along the I-70 corridor during the late afternoon and evening of May 26th. The storms eventually congealed into a line and swept eastward, causing significant wind damage across the southern portions of Clay, Richland, and Lawrence counties. Damage surveys revealed two tornadoes touched down...an EF-2 in Clay County northwest of Xenia and an EF-1 in Lawrence County south of Sumner.

Began near Oskaloosa (38.6963, -88.6977).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Lawrence County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1183320. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.