F0 tornado, Uniontown to Yates City, Illinois, April 30, 1997

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.

Rating

F0

Date

April 30, 1997

Touchdown

3:00 PM CDT (20:00 UTC)

Path length

7.0 miles (11.3 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Knox County

Touchdown point

40.720, -90.100

Lift-off point

40.780, -90.000

Record number

690

Two storms merged over Northern Fulton County and within a few minutes a tornado developed a quarter of a mile southwest of Fairview (Fulton County). In Fairview, 6 homes sustained extensive damage and 2 had only minor damage. Two people in Fairview sustained minor cuts and bruises, though no one needed to be taken to the hospital. At this time the tornado was F0 in intensity. After leaving Fairview, it travelled to the northeast. When the tornado reached Middle Grove (Fulton County) it was F1 in intensity and damaged 25 homes. The tornado picked up a 27 foot camper trailer and dropped it upside down 50 feet away on the north side of Route 116. Two mobile homes were destroyed, as well as, a garage and six homes sustained extensive damage. Also, numerous trees had their tops taken off and numerous power poles were blown down along Route 116 and just east of Middle Grove. No one in Middle Grove was injured despite half of the homes in the town sustaining some kind of damage. From there the tornado hopped and skipped along a northeast path. It touched down 1.5 miles southwest of Yates City (Knox County), destroying a grain bin and damaging several other buildings, then it touched down 1 mile east of Yates City and 3 miles west northwest of Brimfield (Peoria County), knocking down several power poles in both locations. Four miles northwest of Brimfield, the tornado touched down again, ripping the top floor of a split level home off and destroyed a nearby shed and garage. Two people inside the home escaped uninjured. Then before lifting for the final time, the tornado touched down 2 miles east of Wyoming (Stark County), damaging 3 homes, destroying a machine shed, and blew the roofs off of several barns and grain silos. The damage estimate for Fulton County is around $450,000 and for Peoria County is around $25,000. No estimates were available for Knox or Stark Counties.

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:48 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:30 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:47 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 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.

Peoria (PIA), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:01 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

29 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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