EF2 Tornado — Morgan, Illinois

2025-06-18 · near Jacksonville Arpt, Morgan, Illinois

6.9 mi

Path length

300 yds

Path width

Event narrative

A tornado began approximately 2.5 miles north-northeast of the northern edge of Jacksonville, producing damage to trees and a camper at a residence near the intersection of Woodlawn Lakes Road and east Woodlawn Lane. From there, it tracked generally to the northeast for over 6.7 miles over the course of 12 minutes. The next notable area of damage occurred along Substation Road, as well as to a property along Sorrill Road north of the intersection of Substation and Sorrill Roads. On Substation Road, wooden power poles were snapped. At the Sorrill Road property, numerous outbuildings were completely destroyed, uplift of roofing occurred on a house, and heavy farm equipment was displaced or mangled. This area was assigned a damage rating of EF-2. The tornado continued northeast for several more miles, crossing Benson Road near Indiana Creek where it damaged trees. The tornado passed about 0.9 miles east of Literberry and continued northeast, flattening corn in the fields before lifting east of Gray Road just to the south of the Morgan-Cass county line.

Wider weather episode

A mesoscale convective vortex, or MCV, moved into central Illinois late on the morning of Wednesday, June 18th. Moderate instability developed ahead of this feature, and as scattered storms formed they quickly obtained rotation due to shear from the MCV. A total of 14 tornadoes occurred within the NWS Central Illinois county warning area, mainly west of I-55. One minor injury occurred when winds associated with a tornado tossed a woman against her home in Morgan County. Across eastern Illinois, a line of storms developed during the afternoon, mainly producing wind damage before shifting east into Indiana. A wake low developed after the MCV passed, resulting in a short period of non-thunderstorm wind gusts, generally between 45 and 55 mph. The highest non-thunderstorm wind gust associated with the wake low was 58 mph.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.7841, -90.2126)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1261208. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.