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EF2 tornado in Champaign County, Illinois

Tornado November 17, 2013 · Champaign County, Illinois

EF2
Rating
23.2 mi
Whole path
440 yd
Path width
$2.2M
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 440 yards (0.25 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

This tornado crossed from Douglas County into Champaign County 5.3 miles SE of Pesotum at 12:52 PM CST, then tracked northeastward before lifting 2.7 NNW of Broadlands at 1:02 PM CST. The tornado moved through open fields for the first 2.5 miles in Champaign County, then took the roof off 1 home, destroyed about a dozen outbuildings, snapped numerous power poles and trees, and did roof damage to 6 homes. The tornado dissipated in a field 2.7 NNW of Broadlands.

The wider storm

A powerful low pressure system tracked from the central Rockies toward the southern Great Lakes on November 17th. As the system approached central Illinois, unseasonably warm and humid air was pulled northward into the area, resulting in high temperatures soaring into the 70s. This very unstable airmass coupled with strong jet stream level winds aloft created numerous strong to severe thunderstorms. Many of the storms became supercells, producing damaging long-track tornadoes. A total of 10 tornadoes touched down across central Illinois, including an EF4 tornado that severely impacted the community of Washington in Tazewell County. Three people were killed and 142 others were injured as the storms tracked through the area. Total damage was estimated at 1.06 billion dollars across central Illinois.

Began near Bongard (39.8796, -88.1859).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 483887. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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