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EF0 tornado in Sangamon County, Illinois

Tornado July 15, 2020 · Sangamon County, Illinois

EF0

Rating

4.1 mi

Whole path

50 yd

Path width

$20K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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 tornado is a continuation of the tornado that touched down in Morgan County at 4:28 PM CDT. It crossed from Morgan County into Sangamon County 5.6 miles southwest of New Berlin at 4:30 PM CDT, then tracked north-northeastward and dissipated 2.5 miles southwest of New Berlin at 4:37 PM CDT. Minor crop and tree damage was reported.

The wider storm

Low pressure tracked from near Kansas City on the morning of July 15th to southern Lake Michigan by midnight on July 16th. The low interacted with an unstable and very moist environment to produce a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) over eastern Kansas into Missouri, which then pushed into west-central Illinois by the mid to late morning of July 15th. Several rounds of convection moved across the Illinois River Valley through the afternoon, producing heavy rain and isolated wind damage. The heaviest rainfall of 5 to 7 inches was focused across Tazewell, Woodford, and far eastern Peoria counties where significant flash flooding occurred. In addition, 5 weak tornadoes touched down...including 2 in Tazewell County, 1 in McLean County, 1 in Morgan County, and 1 in Montgomery County which then crossed into southern Sangamon County. Minor damage was reported with some of the tornadoes: however, no injuries or deaths occurred.

Began near Prouty (39.6557, -89.9609).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF0 Montgomery County EFU Tazewell County EFU Tazewell County EFU McLean County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 914261. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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