EF2 Tornado — Cass, Illinois

2021-12-10 · near Virginia, Cass, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down about 4 miles south-southwest of Virginia at 7:47 PM CST. The tornado tracked northeastward, heavily damaging a farmstead on Parlier Road about a half mile west of highway 78. Here, a house had significant damage to its roof and several farm buildings were completely demolished. One horse was killed and another injured. The tornado crossed highway 78 about a half mile north of Prairie Creek. It damaged approximately 15 power poles on Conover Road and overturned several storage tanks nearby. After crossing highway 125 about 2 miles southeast of Virginia, the remainder of the track mainly consisted of damage to trees. It crossed much of the Panther Creek Fish & Wildlife Area before lifting about 2 miles west-northwest of Newmansville at 7:59 pm.

Wider weather episode

A deepening area of low pressure tracked from near Kansas City during the afternoon of December 10th to southern Lake Michigan by the pre-dawn hours of December 11th. An unseasonably warm and moist airmass surged northward ahead of the system, resulting in high temperatures reaching the lower to middle 60s across central Illinois. As the low and an associated vigorous short-wave trough interacted with the moderately unstable and highly sheared environment, several clusters of strong to severe thunderstorms developed during the late afternoon and evening of the 10th. Numerous rotating cells were observed, with a total of 6 tornadoes touching down across central Illinois. 5 of the tornadoes were rated EF-2, including one that injured a person just north of Herrick in Shelby County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.8954, -90.2398)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 999835. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.