Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2004

F1 tornado, Neponset, Illinois, June 10, 2004

This F1 tornado ran 0.3 miles across Bureau County on June 10, 2004, touching down at 5:28 PM CDT and reaching 125 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $10,000 of property damage.

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 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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
June 10, 2004
Touchdown
5:28 PM CDT (22:28 UTC)
Path length
0.3 miles (0.5 km)
Path width
125 yards (114 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$10,000
County
Bureau County
Touchdown point
41.270, -89.850
Lift-off point
41.270, -89.850
Record number
370

What the Weather Service recorded

A small supercell produced two tornadoes in quick succession during the afternoon of 10 June 2004. The first (1628-1629 CST) touched down near the intersection of Kentville Rd and 150 East. The Snyder farm lost several outbuildings with damage done to the roof of the farm house and a window blown out with 3 semi trailers tossed onto their sides. Across the road at the VanWinkle farm, a window was blown out and the roof was lifted and set back down with more outbuildings destroyed. The tornado dissipated near the intersection of Kentville Rd and 200 East. The second tornado (1630-1631 CST) developed just north of the first and affected an area just west and east of 200 East Street. The Stabler farm had several windows blown out.

Winds estimated around 100 mph.

Winds estimated around 100 mph.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:29 UTC23:15 UTCTornado WarningDVN
23:15 UTC00:00 UTCTornado WarningDVN
00:14 UTC00:45 UTCTornado WarningDVN

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 20:13 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 radar

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 72 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:29 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 2004 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of June 10, 2004

19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
June 102:00 PM CDTF0Champaign, IL0.710
June 102:20 PM CDTF0Champaign, IL0.510
June 102:38 PM CDTF1Champaign, IL3.030$10,000
June 102:57 PM CDTF0Vermilion, IL3.510
June 102:26 PM MDTF0Box Butte, NE0.130
June 102:35 PM MDTF0Sedgwick, CO0.550
June 102:41 PM MDTF1Deuel, NE10.02202$70,000
June 103:25 PM MDTF0Sheridan, WY3.6100
June 103:40 PM MDTF0Keith, NE0.120$10,000
June 104:05 PM MDTF0Keith, NE0.520
June 104:15 PM MDTF0Arthur, NE0.620$30,000
June 105:30 PM CDTF1Bureau, IL0.3125$10,000
June 104:53 PM MDTF1Stanley, SD1.0400
June 105:55 PM CDTF0Woodford, IL0.110
June 105:00 PM MDTF0Arthur, NE0.220
June 106:55 PM CDTF0Lincoln, NE0.120
June 107:32 PM CDTF0Thomas, KS0.350
June 109:49 PM CDTF1Webster, NE12.0300$500,000
June 1011:05 PM CDTF0Howard, NE1.0100$40,000

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.