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EF0 tornado in Kankakee County, Illinois

Tornado August 10, 2020 · Kankakee County, Illinois

EF0
Rating
1.5 mi
Path length
150 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 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

A tornado with peak winds of 80 mph touched down along N 11000 E Road. Tree limbs were blown down, a utility pole was damaged and crops were damaged. The tornado moved southeast through Grant Park. Numerous trees were damaged including some trees snapped and some trees uprooted. Minor roof damaged occurred to a house on Park Street and to another house on Maple Street. The tornado lifted near Lake Metonga.

The wider storm

During the late morning through the afternoon of Monday August 10th, a line of intense thunderstorms known as a derecho brought widespread severe wind damage across Iowa, northern Illinois and northern Indiana.

In north central and northeast Illinois alone, the severe winds of 60 to 100 mph downed or damaged tens of thousands of trees, as well as caused severe damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure. There were 10 injuries reported in north central and northeast Illinois within the NWS Chicago/Romeoville County Warning Area (CWA). Local officials estimated that nearly one million customers lost power across northern Illinois at the height of the derecho and some people were without power for several days. Damage was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in north central and northeast Illinois, with several billions of dollars in damages across the entire Corn Belt region including significant damage to crops and agriculture infrastructure. While much of the damage was due to straight line winds, there were also 14 tornadoes documented in north central and northeast Illinois.

The combination of high moisture, explosive instability and very strong atmospheric wind flow for mid-summer had developed quickly over the Corn Belt region on the morning of August 10th. This resulted in a progressive, well-organized complex of storms for hundreds of miles and at times traveling nearly 70 mph. After bringing extensive damage from extreme wind speeds in Iowa that morning, the damage transitioned across northern Illinois from widespread wind damage to narrow, brief and intense swaths associated with compact circulations within the thunderstorm line, some of which were associated with tornadoes.

Began near Grant Park (41.2431, -87.6638).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 914862. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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