Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 1996

F0 tornado, Athens, Illinois, July 28, 1996

This F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Menard County on July 28, 1996, touching down at 7:25 PM CDT and reaching 50 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 mphthis tornado

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

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    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
F0
Date
July 28, 1996
Touchdown
7:25 PM CDT (00:25 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
50 yards (46 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Menard County
Touchdown point
39.920, -89.730
Lift-off point
39.920, -89.730
Record number
658

What the Weather Service recorded

A tornado briefly touched down in a field 2 miles south of Athens. No injuries or damage were reported.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
00:05 UTC00:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILX

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 05:57 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), 00:00Z

0.4 hours before the tornado, 100 km from the path. July 29, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 1996-07-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 379 joules per kilogram, CIN -14, lifted condensation level 958 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 00:00Z on 1996-07-29The 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 45 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 31 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
379 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-14 J/kg
Surface CAPE
428 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
958 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
45 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
78 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

11.6 hours after it, 100 km from the path. July 29, 1996.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 1996-07-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 306 joules per kilogram, CIN -58, lifted condensation level 869 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 1996-07-29The 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 47 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 33 knots.19395878Sfc1 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
306 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-58 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
869 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
14 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
47 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
107 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Springfield (SPI), 9 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:54 UTC8168210° 14 kt1017.6
23:54 UTC8068200° 7 kt1017.3
00:20 UTC78.869.8210° 8 kt1016.9
00:54 UTC787020° 6 kt1017.9TS
01:54 UTC7363120° 5 kt1017.9TS

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:27 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 July 28, 1996

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
July 286:00 PM EDTF0Osceola, MI0.110$2,000
July 285:28 PM CDTF1Sheridan, ND8.015
July 285:45 PM CDTF1McLean, ND3.020$70,000
July 286:00 PM MDTF0Adams, CO0.150
July 287:02 PM CDTF0Eddy, ND1.025
July 286:08 PM MDTF0Adams, CO0.150
July 286:08 PM MDTF0Adams, CO5.0440
July 287:10 PM CDTF0Eddy, ND1.025
July 286:14 PM MDTF0Adams, CO0.150
July 286:15 PM MDTF0Weld, CO0.150
July 286:22 PM MDTF0Adams, CO0.150
July 286:45 PM MDTF0Jefferson, CO0.150

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.