EF0 Tornado — Champaign, Illinois

2025-05-20 · near Dailey, Champaign, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down just west of County Road 2600 East and south of County Road 2600 North about 1.5 miles southwest of Gerald at 4:57 PM CDT. The tornado did some minor tree damage upon initial touchdown, then tracked northeastward to County Road 2600 North where it stripped off about one third of the roof of an outbuilding before dissipating at 4:59 PM CDT.

Wider weather episode

A warm front lifted slowly northward through central Illinois during the afternoon of May 20th. A few showers developed in the vicinity of the boundary...with one of the cells producing a brief EF-0 tornado near Oakland in northeastern Coles County. Meanwhile further west, scattered supercell thunderstorms formed in the warm sector ahead of a cold front crossing the Mississippi River. Some of the storms dropped hail as large as tennis balls (2.5 in diameter) across portions of Morgan County as they initially developed. As the storms continued further eastward, several weak tornadoes were observed: one near Latham in southeastern Logan County and four additional tornadoes further east across eastern Champaign County into Vermilion County. The strongest tornado was rated EF-1 as it snapped two power poles and damaged numerous trees near Armstrong and Potomac in Vermilion County. Further southeast, a downburst with estimated 90 mph winds created widespread wind damage on the south side of Westville in Vermilion County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.2488, -87.9699)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1251547. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.