Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 1996

F1 tornado, Evansville, Illinois, December 23, 1996

This F1 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Randolph County on December 23, 1996, touching down at 2:55 PM CST and reaching 70 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
December 23, 1996
Touchdown
2:55 PM CST (20:55 UTC)
Path length
2.0 miles (3.2 km)
Path width
70 yards (64 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Randolph County
Touchdown point
38.080, -89.930
Lift-off point
38.100, -89.920
Record number
1044

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado initially touched down 1/2 mile southwest of Evansville, damaging 2 homes and a large utility building. Several large trees were uprooted and a church sustained minor roof damage. The tornado moved across the southern end of Evensville causing mainly tree damage. Two mobile homes suffered minor roof damage. The tornado continued northeast destroying a bowling alley on the east side of town. The tornado then crossed Shuline Road where it damaged 3 homes. One home lost its roof, another half its roof, and the third sustained only minor roof damage. The tornado dissipated about 1 mile northeast of town over open farmland.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

17 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:38 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:38 UTC21:15 UTCTornado WarningLSX

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:52 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

8.9 hours before the tornado, 256 km from the path. December 23, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 1996-12-23Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 70 joules per kilogram, CIN -60, lifted condensation level 518 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 1996-12-23The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 141 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 59 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
70 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-60 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
518 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
59 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
141 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
151 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

3.1 hours after it, 256 km from the path. December 24, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 1996-12-24Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -73240, lifted condensation level 489 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 1996-12-24The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 34 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 92 knots.1939587897117136Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-73240 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
489 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
92 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
7 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
34 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
20 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:56 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1996 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 23, 1996

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 2310:45 AM CSTF0Crawford, MO0.550
December 2311:30 AM CSTF0Texas, MO1.050
December 2310:00 AM PSTF1Marin, CA6.020$200,000
December 2311:30 AM PSTF0Sonoma, CA0.3201$1,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.