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Thunderstorm Wind — Franklin, Illinois

2025-10-19 · near West Frankfort, Franklin, Illinois

$3K

Property damage

83 EG

Magnitude

Event narrative

A large tree limb was snapped off and fell onto a pickup truck in West Frankfort.

Wider weather episode

A small cluster of thunderstorms developed and moved all the way across southern Illinois in the early morning. The storms formed just ahead of a strong, sharp 500mb trough in an area of strong upper divergence associated with a small 120kt 300mb jet. Most unstable CAPE was only around 250J/kg, but mid-level lapse rates were 6.5-7 C/km and low-level lapse rates were 6-6.5 C/km. Right near the trough line, the shear was negligible. The storms began to produce damaging winds across eastern portions of Perry County and then solidified into a persistent bow echo over Franklin County. It produced damaging winds as it moved northeast through McLeansboro and into White county.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.9000, -88.9300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1298144. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.