EF1 tornado in Fulton County, Illinois

This tornado crossed from Schuyler County into far southern Fulton County about 6.9 miles southeast of Astoria at 3:55 PM CST. The tornado progressed northeastward doing extensive tree damage as it nearly paralleled Highway 100. Additional tree damage and minor roof damage occurred near the intersection of Highway 100 and US-136. The tornado then tracked nearly due northward through rural areas doing tree damage before hitting some homes along North Waterford Road, producing mainly roof and siding damage, along with snapping and uprooting many trees. The hardest hit areas from this tornado were along East County Highway 9 southeast of Lewistown, where more extensive home damage occurred, along with very large trees getting snapped or uprooted. A winery suffered extensive damage to several buildings and numerous trees and power lines were downed. The tornado dissipated in a field east of East Township Line Road and County Highway 9 about 2.3 miles southeast of Lewistown at 4:18 PM CST.

An historic tornado outbreak occurred across Illinois on December 1st, with a total of 29 tornadoes touching down across the central part of the state. This made it the largest December tornado outbreak in the state of Illinois since 1957, and the third largest tornado outbreak across Illinois in any month since 1950. Within the National Weather Service Lincoln County Warning Area (CWA), 20 tornadoes touched down...with the most significant being an EF-3 tornado that tore through the city of Taylorville in Christian County. Despite several communities being directly impacted and experiencing major damage, there were no fatalities reported. The severe weather was caused by a deep area of low pressure that tracked from eastern Kansas into north-central Illinois. Warm air surging northward ahead of the low allowed temperatures to soar into the upper 50s and lower 60s, resulting in a narrow corridor of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) values of 500-1000J/kg ahead of an approaching occluded front. Thanks to ample low-level wind shear, numerous supercell thunderstorms developed within the instability axis by mid to late afternoon. Many of the storms produced tornadoes over the next several hours before the storms gradually weakened by mid-evening.