EF1 Tornado — Mclean, Illinois

2025-12-28 · near Saybrook, Mclean, Illinois

0.9 mi

Path length

30 yds

Path width

Event narrative

A tornado touched down about 3 miles east-southeast of Saybrook at 3:24 PM CST. The tornado destroyed a large outbuilding, throwing the debris to the east-northeast. It then quickly dissipated before reaching the Ford County line at 3:25 PM CST.

Wider weather episode

The airmass continued to destabilize across central Illinois during the afternoon of December 28th as high temperatures reached record values in the upper 60s to around 70 degrees and dewpoints hovered in the lower to middle 60s. Thanks to the high degree of instability and shear, a line of thunderstorms rapidly formed along an advancing cold front near the I-55 corridor by early afternoon. The storms then pushed eastward, producing 3 tornadoes and scattered damaging winds eastward to the Indiana border. The most significant tornado was rated EF-2 and caused considerable property damage just south of Decatur in Macon County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.4168, -88.4778)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1305603. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.