EF1 tornado in Macon County, Illinois

A tornado touched down a half mile east of IL Highway 51 along East School Road about 2.2 miles south of Maroa at 6:31 PM CST. The tornado destroyed a large outbuilding and snapped off many trees in that area, then moved to the northeast, causing periodic tree damage and some home roofing damage before dissipating as it reached the intersection of East Duroc Road and Sawyer Road 1.4 miles southeast of Maroa at 6:33 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.