EF1 tornado in Tazewell County, Illinois

This tornado crossed from Mason County into southwestern Tazewell County south of the intersection of Jacobs Road and Nichols Road at 12:11 AM CDT March 11th. The tornado continued northeastward to about 1 mile west of Green Valley where it snapped 8 power poles before dissipating at 12:15 AM CDT.

A warm front lifted northward through central Illinois on March 10th, allowing temperatures to soar into the upper 70s and lower 80s. Record highs were established at Springfield (84 degrees), Peoria (83 degrees), and Lincoln (82 degrees)...all topping their previous highs set back in 1955. As an upper-level disturbance tracked eastward out of the Plains and interacted with the departing front, scattered supercell thunderstorms developed along and north of a Macomb to Pontiac line during the late afternoon. Some of these cells dropped giant hail (over 4 inches in diameter) across the southern part of the NWS Chicago County Warning Area (CWA). Further south in the NWS Lincoln coverage zone, the storms spawned 3 tornadoes across parts of Knox, Stark, and Marshall counties. After these initial cells tracked further northeast out of the area, a line of thunderstorms formed along an advancing cold front across the Illinois River Valley by late evening...with the storms eventually dropping south of the I-70 corridor toward daybreak on March 11th. The line initially produced a downburst with 80-90mph winds in Havana in Mason County, as well as 2 tornadoes further east in rural Mason County. Closer to sunrise, an additional tornado touched down near Yale in Jasper County before the storms exited into Indiana.