F0 tornado, La Harpe to Berwick, Illinois, April 8, 1999

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 8, 1999

Touchdown

7:35 PM CDT (00:35 UTC)

Path length

20.0 miles (32.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Henderson, Hancock and Warren counties

Touchdown point

40.620, -90.970

Lift-off point

40.820, -90.530

Record number

85

A second tornado spawned by the same storm, which produced the Hamilton tornado, touched down in extreme northeast Hancock County south of Terra Haute. The tornado tracked northeast through Henderson County and into Warren County passing 3 miles east of Raritan. The tornado weakened and lifted north of Berwick in Warren County. Damage along the path was scattered and rated F0. An aluminum sided farm shed had part of the roof and wall torn off 2 miles north of Roseville. The storm which produced the tornado was embedded within a line of severe thunderstorms which swept across southeast Iowa and west central Illinois during the early evening. Nickel to jelly bean size hail was reported in Biggsville and Gladstone as the line moved across Henderson County. A funnel cloud was also reported in Galva in Henry County along with winds gusting to 60 mph. Very heavy rain also caused water to cover portions of US highway 116 east of Roseville in Warren County.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:58 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 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 High Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:32 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 1999 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

46 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.