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EF2 tornado in Piatt County, Illinois

Tornado March 14, 2025 · Piatt County, Illinois

EF2
Rating
12.6 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Moultrie County → Piatt 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 began in far northern Moultrie County, where it produced EF-1 damage to trees, roofs, and a few outbuildings along a three mile path before continuing into Piatt County. It entered into Piatt County at the southwest corner of Hammond and then continued along a curved path for over nine additional miles. Numerous trees were damaged in Hammond, some of which caused damage to buildings as they fell. The peak intensity of EF-2 occurred near the intersection of Don Ryan St. and country road 100, where a farm outbuilding was completely destroyed with debris strewn to the northeast. The tornado continued to produce damage to trees and farm outbuildings as it continued east, and eventually east-northeast, for several more miles. The tornado dissipated northeast of the intersection of county roads North 1400 East Road and State Highway 105, about one mile west of the Champaign-Piatt County line. From its start in Moultrie County through its dissipation in Piatt County, this tornado lasted a total of 13 minutes.

The wider storm

A potent low pressure system progressed across the Midwest on Friday, March 14, 2025. Ahead of this system, temperatures soared nearly 30 degrees above normal with high temperatures reaching the low 80s across central Illinois. Into the evening and overnight hours, a cold front swept across Illinois, with a line of severe thunderstorms developing ahead of the front. These storms produced widespread damaging straight-line winds and eight tornadoes within the NWS Lincoln County Warning Area, all of which occurred in eastern Illinois. Two of these tornadoes were rated EF-2: one in Moultrie and Piatt counties, and another in Cumberland and Coles counties. The latter of these resulted in two injuries.

Began near Hammond (39.7919, -88.5900).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

7 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1240119. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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