EF2 Tornado — Lee, Illinois

2015-06-22 · near Maytown, Lee, Illinois

Event narrative

Very significant tree damage occurred with many large trees snapped or uprooted in Woodhaven Lakes Camping Resort. At least one house was pushed off of its foundation. Several trees fell onto recreational vehicles and it was estimated that around 100 of the 300 homes in the area received some degree of damage. One person was taken to the hospital in serious condition, and six others were injured. Peak winds were estimated to be 130 mph. (Tornado 3 of 10).

Wider weather episode

During the evening of June 22, twelve tornadoes occurred across northern Illinois, including ten in the WFO Chicago forecast area. Ten of the twelve were spawned from a single long-lived cyclic supercell, which tracked across Whiteside, Lee, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee Counties. The heaviest damage was in Coal City (Grundy County) and Braidwood (Will County) which was caused by an EF-3 tornado with maximum winds of 160 mph, and the Woodhaven Campground in Sublette (Lee County) caused by an EF-2 tornado with maximum winds of 130 mph. There were 14 injuries reported. There were no fatalities. The EF-3 Coal City to Braidwood tornado was the strongest tornado in Grundy County since an F3 tornado struck on July 17, 1972. The atmosphere was primed for severe weather, with very warm, humid conditions, low pressure moving north of the region, and a strong jet stream aloft. An outflow boundary from earlier storms during the late morning and early afternoon may have been key to where the long-lived tornado-producing storm tracked. In addition to tornado and wind damage, slow moving storms brought torrential rainfall of locally up to 3 to 5 inches to portions of Lee, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee counties, resulting in widespread flash flooding. This rain fell on top of soil already saturated from repeated heavy rains over the past few weeks.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.6565, -89.3213)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 590631. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.