Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2000
F1 tornado, Forsyth to Oreana, Illinois, April 20, 2000
From Forsyth to Oreana, this F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Macon County on April 20, 2000, touching down at 9:30 AM CDT and reaching 300 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- April 20, 2000
- Touchdown
- 9:30 AM CDT (14:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.3 miles (0.5 km)
- Path width
- 300 yards (274 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Macon County
- Touchdown point
- 39.950, -88.950
- Lift-off point
- 39.950, -88.950
- Record number
- 746
What the Weather Service recorded
The tornado touched down west northwest of the intersection of Route 51 and County Route 20. The tornado then crossed Route 51 moving to the northeast. It damaged a couple of large oil pipeline storage tanks (put large dents in them), then the tornado weakened in an open field and dissipated.
The tornado touched down 1.8 miles northeast of Oreana, just east of Route 48. It moved to the northeast along Route 48, entering Argenta. The most severe damage was in two areas. The first was about 2 miles northeast of Oreana where the roof of a two story house was lifted off. The second was on the southwest side of Argenta, where part of the roof of a two story brick building was lifted off and placed on top of a lower building roof. Also, numerous trees, power poles, and power lines were blown down. A garage was destroyed in Argenta. No injuries were reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
24 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 14:06 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 14:45 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:13 UTC | 12:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 14:06 UTC | 14:45 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILX |
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 Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:36 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
2.5 hours before the tornado, 37 km from the path. April 20, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 595 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -48 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 203 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 873 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 54 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 54 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 167 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 147 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 3.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.4 K/km
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z
9.5 hours after it, 37 km from the path. April 21, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -13709 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 524 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 27 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 167 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 148 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The surface observations
Decatur (DEC), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:50 UTC | 69.8 | 62.6 | 180° 10 kt | |||
| 13:50 UTC | 69.8 | 62.6 | 180° 14 kt | |||
| 14:50 UTC | 66.2 | 60.8 | 240° 29 kt | 48.6 | 999 | RA |
| 15:50 UTC | 60.8 | 60.8 | 240° 10 kt |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 20, 2000
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 20 | 4:10 AM CDT | F1 | Callaway, MO | 2.0 | 60 | $50,000 | ||
| April 20 | 7:59 AM CDT | F1 | Macoupin, IL | 1.0 | 30 | $30,000 | ||
| April 20 | 9:00 AM CDT | F0 | Logan, IL | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| April 20 | 9:05 AM CDT | F0 | Sangamon, IL | 0.3 | 20 | |||
| April 20 | 9:30 AM CDT | F1 | Macon, IL | 2.3 | 150 | |||
| April 20 | 10:05 AM CDT | F0 | Piatt, IL | 3.5 | 30 | |||
| April 20 | 6:55 PM EDT | F1 | Washington, KY | 1.0 | 70 | 4 | $70,000 | |
| April 20 | 7:05 PM EDT | F1 | Mercer, KY | 1.8 | 40 | $40,000 | ||
| April 20 | 6:25 PM CDT | F0 | Wilson, TN | 0.4 | 10 | |||
| April 20 | 7:00 PM CDT | F0 | Clinton, KY | 0.3 | 20 | $2,000 | ||
| April 20 | 7:14 PM CDT | F1 | Bedford, TN | 2.0 | 60 | 1 | $30,000 | |
| April 20 | 9:50 PM EDT | F1 | Scott, TN | 0.3 | 20 | $200,000 | ||
| April 20 | 10:35 PM EDT | F0 | Claiborne, TN | 0.1 | 20 |
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.