TornadoLookup

Home / Illinois / Wayne

EF2 tornado in Wayne County, Illinois

Tornado April 19, 2011 · Wayne County, Illinois

EF2
Rating
10.6 mi
Path length
150 yd
Path width
2
Injuries
$400K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

One house was destroyed, with part of the roof removed and separation of some walls. A machine shed and several grain bins were destroyed. About a dozen power poles were snapped. Dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted. A tank was blown about 150 yards. An outbuilding was blown across Route 15. The average path width was 100 yards. Peak winds were estimated near 120 mph.

The wider storm

Thunderstorms organized into a bow echo that produced widespread very damaging winds and isolated tornadoes. A shortwave trough over the central and southern high Plains moved northeast through the Mid-Mississippi Valley into the upper Great Lakes. A surface low attendant to this system moved from west central Missouri northeast to north of St. Louis. The trailing cold front advanced southeast across the Lower Ohio Valley and served as the primary focus for thunderstorms.

Began near Fairfield (38.3268, -88.3021).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 289121. 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.