EF0 Tornado — Vermilion, Illinois

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

Event narrative

A tornado touched down along East 2300 North Road just east of its intersection with North 500 East Road about 2.5 miles southwest of Collison at 5:06 PM CDT. The tornado initially caused minor tree damage, then tracked eastward where it was video taped by spotters as it passed 2 miles southeast of Collison. It then tracked northeastward through Horseshoe Bottom Nature Preserve and caused additional tree damage along East 2600 North Road before dissipating just northeast of the intersection of East 2600 North Road and North 1110 East Road at 5:15 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 → (40.2020, -87.8439)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1251561. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.