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EF1 tornado in Knox County, Illinois

Tornado April 20, 2025 · Knox County, Illinois

EF1
Rating
24.0 mi
Whole path
150 yd
Path width
$1K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

A tornado touched down just south of Highway 167 about a mile west of Victoria at 8:39 PM CDT. The tornado snapped 4 power poles along Highway 167, then tracked northeastward and damaged numerous trees and a few outbuildings before passing through the Galva Cemetery and crossing into the National Weather Service Quad Cities County Warning Area in Henry County at 8:49 PM CDT.

The wider storm

A warm front lifted northward through central Illinois during the afternoon of April 20th...allowing temperatures to climb well into the 70s. As a cold front approached from the west, scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developed in the Illinois River Valley by early evening. A few of the cells began rotating, especially as they approached the warm front along and north of the I-74 corridor. Three tornadoes touched down...including 2 EF-1 tornadoes in Knox County and another EF-1 in Tazewell County. Other cells produced scattered wind damage mainly west of I-55, with an isolated damaging wind gust occurring further southeast in Clay County later in the evening as the storms advanced eastward to the Indiana border.

Began near Victoria (41.0295, -90.1210).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1249450. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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