Thunderstorm Wind — Macon, Illinois

2025-04-02 · near Argenta, Macon, Illinois

Event narrative

A powerline was downed near the intersection of East Washington Street and Argenta Road east of Maroa.

Wider weather episode

An area of low pressure tracked from southeastern Nebraska during the morning of April 2nd to western Wisconsin by evening, triggering two rounds of convection across central Illinois.

Round 1 occurred during the morning when a line of thunderstorms along the trailing cold front pushed into the Illinois River Valley. These storms were generally sub-severe, but one cell produced a downburst with estimated winds in excess of 70 mph across parts of Logan County, downing a few trees, tearing the roof off a business, and flipping 3 semis in and near Lincoln.

Round 2 materialized by early afternoon as storms re-developed along an outflow boundary from the morning convection along the I-55 corridor. These storms tapped into a moderately unstable and highly sheared environment and quickly became severe. Six tornadoes touched down...including a long-track EF-2 tornado that remained on the ground for nearly 45 miles and impacted parts of Cumberland, Clark, and Edgar counties before crossing into Vigo County, Indiana. Numerous reports of wind damage and large hail were received as the storms congealed into a line and pushed eastward across I-57 by early evening. The largest reported hail stones were the size of eggs (2 in diameter) in Springfield in Sangamon County and just northwest of Latham in southern Logan County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.0419, -88.8206)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1248231. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.