EF2 Tornado — Menard, Illinois

2021-12-10 · near Atterberry, Menard, Illinois

Event narrative

A tornado touched down about one half mile east of Atterberry at 8:07 PM CST. The tornado tracked northeastward, significantly damaging a pair of metal sheds along Pin Hook Avenue. It mainly passed through open fields until reaching a farm along Masters Avenue about a half mile west of Fairgrounds Street where a machine shed was destroyed and a couple other outbuildings were damaged. The worst damage was along Altig Bridge Avenue about a half mile east of Fairgrounds Street. A house sustained significant damage to its roof, several trees were snapped, and sheds across the road were damaged or destroyed. From this point, the tornado mainly traveled in farm fields, overturning an irrigation pivot before lifting just shy of the Sangamon River at 8:16 PM CST.

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 → (40.0607, -89.9153)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 999838. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.