F1 tornado, Cypress, Illinois, April 13, 1998

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.

Rating

F1

Date

April 13, 1998

Touchdown

9:09 PM CDT (02:09 UTC)

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$60,000

County

Johnson County

Touchdown point

37.350, -89.050

Lift-off point

37.350, -89.020

Record number

156

A short-lived tornado began along the Union County line, just southwest of Cypress, and tracked east along a rural road before dissipating at State Route 37. A small barn, about 150 square feet in area, was blown across the road. Some pieces of wood were stuck in the ground at an angle up to 200 feet away. One house sustained siding damage. Another house had a portion of its roof lifted up and placed back down again. A bedroom in the house was damaged. In addition, very minor damage occurred to a greenhouse, an abandoned house, and a couple of mobile homes. Trees, power lines, and power poles were down along the path of the tornado. Large trees, two feet in diameter, were blown down in between two mobile homes. Along Route 37, six power poles were snapped off about two feet above the ground. A female motorist was injured when her moving vehicle was struck by a falling tree. She was treated and released from a local hospital for minor injuries. Just north of Cypress, several large trees were down, but this damage was likely due to straight-line thunderstorm winds.

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

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

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 10:34 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.

Paducah/Barkley (PAH), 40 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 39 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:07 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 1998 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.