EF3 tornado in Kankakee County, Illinois

A destructive EF-3 tornado with peak winds of 160 mph impacted portions of central and eastern Kankakee County before moving into northwest Indiana. The most notable damage caused by this tornado in Kankakee County occurred in the Aroma Park area. This tornado began just north of W 3000S Road southwest of Kankakee, IL, about one mile east of State Route 115. The tornado intensified while traveling east-northeastward into the far southern section of the city of Kankakee in the vicinity of Route 45, where concentrated higher end EF-1 tree damage and structural damage was observed. The tornado intensified further while moving across E 2500S Road, destroying a two-story home and several metal farm buildings, consistent with EF-3 caliber wind speeds. Concentrated extreme tree damage was noted, with numerous large hardwood trees snapped, stubbed, or uprooted despite lacking leaves, likely due to extensive debris lofting in the area.

After crossing I-57 and the Kankakee River, the tornado rapidly increased in size, producing a swath of significant damage in and near northern portions of Aroma Park. In this area, multiple homes were heavily damaged to an estimated EF-2 intensity. The tornado's peak width occurred here and was estimated to be approximately 1550 yards. Ground survey and aerial imagery suggests that the tornado further intensified as it tracked east-southeast before crossing the Kankakee River again. Within a narrow 150-200 yard wide section along S. Sandbar Road to the northeast of Aroma Park, three homes were completely destroyed, consistent with EF-3 caliber winds, and multiple others were heavily damaged and rendered uninhabitable. A heavy pickup truck parked in front of the garage of one of the destroyed homes was moved over 100 feet into a ditch next to the driveway, possibly being spun around the remnants of a small tree before reaching the ditch. In addition, on the other side of Sandbar Road, a crossover type SUV appeared to have been rolled onto the adjacent property and deposited onto a pile of debris just north of a heavily damaged residence. Along the swath of the most intense structural damage, concentrated extreme tree damage was noted, with numerous large hardwood trees snapped, stubbed, or uprooted despite lacking leaves, likely owing to extensive flying debris. Along Sandbar Road and through the Kankakee Elks Golf Course, the tornado's width was estimated at near 1500 yards. The tornado then continued generally east to east-northeast towards the Indiana state line, downing numerous additional trees, causing occasional structural damage, and flipping irrigation pivots as it moved just north of the communities of Wichert and Hopkins Park. The tornado continued on its destructive path into Newton County, Indiana where it caused additional EF-3 damage before eventually lifting west of De Motte in Jasper County. It was on the ground for over 35 miles and, at its peak, spanned a half mile in diameter. The storm destroyed numerous homes and resulted in around a dozen injuries and three fatalities: one in Aroma Park and the other two in Newton County, Indiana.

Scattered severe thunderstorms produced numerous tornadoes and large to giant hail as they moved across northern Illinois during the late afternoon and evening of March 10th. Included in the 9 total tornadoes in northeast Illinois that day is an EF-3 which tracked from the south side of Kankakee into Newton and Jasper counties in Indiana and devastated a portion of Aroma Park. There were two primary corridors of large hail; one extending from northern Will County into the city of Chicago, which produced hail upwards of 4.8 inches in diameter, and another from central Livingston County extending east across Kankakee County. Nearly a dozen individual reports of hail greater than 4 inches came out of this southernmost corridor, and a 6.6 inch hailstone found in Kankakee is pending as the new Illinois state record.