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EF1 tornado in Grundy County, Illinois

Tornado June 22, 2015 · Grundy County, Illinois

EF1
Rating
7.0 mi
Whole path
150 yd
Path width
$50K
Damage as recorded

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

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 EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 is a continuation of a tornado that began in Lasalle County. This tornado was determined based on reports from trained spotters and photos of the damage. Large trees were snapped and there was minor structural damage to outbuildings. The tornado crossed Interstate-80 near the Seneca Exit. The tornado had peak winds estimated to 90 mph. (Tornado 6b of 10).

The wider storm

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.

Began near Nettlecreek (41.3925, -88.5944).

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 590638. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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