EF2 Tornado — Wabash, Illinois

2011-04-19 · near Keensburg, Wabash, Illinois

Event narrative

Three steel towers carrying high-voltage power lines were bent or partially collapsed. A single wide mobile home was demolished. The frame was blown about 50 yards but was not bent. There was curvature in the debris field. A grain bin was blown one mile into a tree line, and three other grain bins were destroyed. Machine sheds were unroofed, with some walls collapsing. Barns were destroyed, and hundreds of trees were uprooted or snapped. Power poles were snapped. There was minor to moderate damage to house roofs. The tornado reached EF-2 intensity in sparsely populated areas. Where it crossed through the north and west part of Mount Carmel near the end of its path, the tornado weakened to EF-1 intensity. The damage in Mount Carmel consisted of numerous uprooted and snapped trees, moderate roof damage to at least 4 or 5 houses, and destroyed sheds. In the vicinity of where the tornado crossed Route 15, damage was minimal, consisting of just a few downed trees. Peak winds were near 125 mph. The average path width was about 100 yards.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.3500, -87.9475)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 289166. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.