EF2 Tornado — Christian, Illinois

2018-12-01 · near Stonington, Christian, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down along IL Route 48 on the southwest edge of Stonington at 5:34 PM CST. At this time, two circulations aloft merged near the west side of Stonington, causing the tornado to take a sharp turn toward the north. Much of the damage in the town was on the northwest side where house roofs were impacted and several garages and sheds were destroyed. The tornado continued tracking to the north and did significant damage to outbuildings at a farm 4 miles north of Stonington. The tornado then curved toward the northeast, damaging several more outbuildings and sheds before it dissipated near Mosquito Creek, about 5.9 miles east-southeast of Mt. Auburn at 5:52 PM CST.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.6301, -89.2008)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 795038. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.