EF1 Tornado — Vermilion, Illinois

2025-05-20 · near Armstrong, Vermilion, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down along IL-49 midway between East 2700 North Road and East 2800 North Road about 3 miles south of Armstrong at 5:06 PM CDT. The tornado initially caused some tree damage, then tracked eastward and snapped two power poles along North 650 East Road. It then continued to near the intersection of East 2800 North Road and Potomac-Collison Road where it snapped or blew down around 12 large trees at a residence before dissipating shortly thereafter at 5:10 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 → (40.2634, -87.8937)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1251548. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.