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EF2 tornado in Knox County, Illinois

Tornado June 5, 2010 · Knox County, Illinois

EF2
Rating
7.8 mi
Whole path
50 yd
Path width
$85.4M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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

A tornado touched down 4.5 miles west-northwest of Yates City in eastern Knox County then tracked southeastward to the Knox-Peoria County line. Large tree limbs were snapped and crops were scoured in numerous places along this path. A house had the roof torn off and much of the upper level of the structure severely damaged. The attached garage was also destroyed. In addition, a large garage was destroyed, and seven outbuildings were severely damaged. The tornado continued southeastward into Peoria County.

The wider storm

A stationary frontal boundary extending from southern Michigan across north-central Illinois served as the focus for severe thunderstorm development during the late afternoon and evening of June 5th. A vigorous upper-level disturbance tracking across the Upper Midwest added extra wind energy to the atmosphere, allowing supercell thunderstorms to develop along the front. Eight tornadoes were spawned by the storms, mainly along a Galesburg to Eureka line. An isolated tornado formed further south across eastern Logan and western DeWitt counties as well. No injuries were reported.

Began near Douglas (40.8010, -90.0919).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 243555. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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