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EF2 tornado in Peoria County, Illinois

Tornado June 5, 2010 · Peoria 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 crossed the Knox-Peoria County line 1.1 miles west of Elmwood, then continued southeastward through the town of Elmwood. Considerable structural damage occurred to 10 homes, 30 businesses and nearly two dozen vehicles in downtown Elmwood, amounting to approximately $85 million in damages. There was a total of about 80 people, some that were attending an outdoor festival in the downtown and some that were at a theater, that took shelter in the basement of the movie theater. As a result, there were no injuries. The tornado dissipated 1 mile east of Elmwood.

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 Elmwood (40.7820, -89.9856).

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 243563. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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