EF1 Tornado — Rock Island, Illinois

2024-07-15 · near Andalusia, Rock Island, Illinois

Event narrative

An NWS Storm Survey found a tornado touched down northwest of Taylor Ridge in Rock Island County. The tornado damaged trees, dented two large grain bins, and damaged power poles. The tornado then moved into Mercer County around 18:27 CST, about a third of a mile west of US Route 67 on 190th Ave W. In Mercer County, the tornado damaged trees, power poles, and small farm outbuildings. The tornado then moved into Henry County around 18:36 CST, about 0.4 miles south of Camp Creek Road. The tornado continued to damage trees, power poles, and small farm outbuildings, before crossing Interstate 74 and lifting south of Andover. In all three counties (Rock Island, Mercer, Henry) the tornado was rated an EF-1 with maximum winds around 100 mph.

Wider weather episode

Thunderstorms rapidly developed over northern Iowa during the afternoon and organized into a powerful line of wind producing storms that surged through the Quad Cities and into northern and central Illinois through the evening hours. These storms brought widespread damaging winds up to 100 mph for many locations, extending across eastern Iowa, much of Illinois, and into Indiana. The Storm Prediction Center has classified this event as a Derecho which by definition is a swath of wind damage at least 400 miles long and at least 60 miles wide including several well-separated significant wind gusts over 75 mph. Corridors of significant wind damage occurred along Highway 20. 10 tornadoes also occurred with these storms in the NWS Quad Cities service area.

In addition to the wind, very heavy rainfall fell in a short amount of time with many locations seeing over an inch. The highest totals fell in McDonough and Warren counties in Illinois where amounts between 2 and 3 inches fell.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.4000, -90.7300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1204484. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.