EF1 tornado in Sangamon County, Illinois

A tornado touched down 2.4 miles west of Curran along Werner Road about three quarters of a mile west of the intersection with Farmingdale Road at 7:44 PM CDT. The roof of a home lost some shingles and a few pine trees were broken off in this area. The tornado tracked across mainly open fields and crossed I-72 just east of Farmingdale Road at 7:45 PM CDT. The tornado continued northeastward and damaged a house along Bunker Hill Road, blowing out windows, removing shingles, and breaking several trees. It then caused minor shingle damage to a home along Emerson Road about a quarter mile south of Iles Avenue. Further northeast, the tornado caused significant damage to a home along Iles Avenue about a half mile east of the intersection with Emerson Road, removing most of the roof and blowing out a wall on the west side of the structure. Across the street, a barn lost its roof and several trees were snapped off. The tornado then dissipated in an open field 6.6 miles west-southwest of Springfield at 7:50 PM CDT.

An area of low pressure deepened considerably as it tracked from northeast Missouri into southern Wisconsin on March 15th. While the airmass ahead of this system across central Illinois remained capped for much of the day, an approaching upper trough helped weaken the cap and set the stage for scattered severe thunderstorms ahead of an approaching cold front during the evening of the 15th. Several clusters of thunderstorms moved across west-central Illinois, mainly along and west of I-55. The first cluster tracked from just north of Quincy toward the Peoria area, while a second cluster impacted locations from Jacksonville to Springfield. Thanks to moderate instability and strong low-level wind shear near the low track, many of the storms rotated and produced large hail and tornadoes. A total of 4 tornadoes touched down, including an EF-2 just northwest of Trivoli in Peoria County.