Home / Illinois / Jefferson

EF0 tornado in Jefferson County, Illinois

Tornado March 8, 2009 · Jefferson County, Illinois

EF0

Rating

4.2 mi

Whole path

100 yd

Path width

$92K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Jefferson County → Wayne County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Large tree limbs were broken. Four power poles were knocked over. Peak winds were estimated near 85 mph. The tornado continued into Wayne County.

The wider storm

A strong 500 mb shortwave moved rapidly northeast from the Plains during the day. The shortwave became a closed low over the Great Lakes region by the evening hours. In the lower levels, a strong southwest 850 mb jet from 60 to 65 knots shifted east from the Ozarks across southern Illinois. These features provided sufficient shear and instability for a significant tornado.

Began near Stratton (38.4453, -88.7568).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

3 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF2 Wayne County EF1 Wayne County EF1 Jefferson County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 158590. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.