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EF1 tornado in Edgar County, Illinois

Tornado April 2, 2025 · Edgar County, Illinois

EF1
Rating
8.1 mi
Whole path
200 yd
Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Clark County → Edgar 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

This tornado crossed from Clark County into Edgar County near the intersection of North Fern Lake Road and East 2250th Road at 7:08 PM CDT where it tore off the front section of an outbuilding. It then continued northeastward damaging trees and power lines before dissipating in an open field northeast of North 2250th Street and East 175th Road at 7:10 PM CDT.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Ferrell (39.4769, -87.5782).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1248994. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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