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EF3 tornado in Menard County, Illinois

Tornado December 31, 2010 · Menard County, Illinois

EF3

Rating

3.6 mi

Path length

200 yd

Path width

Injury

$12.0M

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 200 yards (0.11 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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 on the west side of Lake Petersburg at 12:37 PM CST, then tracked northeast over the lake and across Sunny Acres Road, before lifting southeast of the intersection of Tice Road and Illinois 123 at 12:40 PM CST. A total of 29 homes sustained significant structural damage, four of which could not be repaired. Two barns were also destroyed, and nearly 100 houses and a nursing home had minor damage along the path of the tornado. One person was seriously injured when the tornado caused a large tree limb to fall on their automobile, crushing the car and trapping the occupant.

The wider storm

A strong cold front pushed across central Illinois on December 31st, triggering a line of strong to severe thunderstorms. Unseasonably warm and moist air ahead of the front aided in initial storm development, while a strong upper-level disturbance created a highly sheared environment. One of the resulting supercell thunderstorms produced an EF3 tornado that tracked across the Lake Petersburg area in Menard County, creating considerable damage.

Began near Lincns New Salem St (39.9842, -89.8620).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 267414. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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