Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2005

F1 tornado, Pulaski, Illinois, January 13, 2005

This F1 tornado ran 11.0 miles across Pulaski County on January 13, 2005, touching down at 3:05 AM CST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $70,000 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
January 13, 2005
Touchdown
3:05 AM CST (09:05 UTC)
Path length
11.0 miles (17.7 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$70,000
County
Pulaski County
Touchdown point
37.200, -89.180
Lift-off point
37.300, -89.020
Record number
8

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms produced isolated wind damage and a tornado across southern Illinois. The tornado and most of the wind damage was produced by a thunderstorm cell that entered southern Illinois near Cairo, then tracked northeast across Pulaski and Johnson Counties.

A grain bin was blown over, and about a half dozen sheds and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed. Numerous trees and large limbs were blown down. An older mobile home was destroyed 3 to 4 miles west of Grand Chain. Peak winds were estimated near 75 MPH. Structural damage was minimal due to the very rural nature of the area.

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
09:04 UTC09:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningPAH
09:15 UTC09:45 UTCTornado WarningPAH

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 05:54 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.

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z

9.1 hours before the tornado, 255 km from the path. January 13, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2005-01-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 38 joules per kilogram, CIN -34, lifted condensation level 729 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 00:00Z on 2005-01-13The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 234 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 50 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
38 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-34 J/kg
Surface CAPE
57 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
729 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
50 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
234 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
270 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z

2.9 hours after it, 255 km from the path. January 13, 2005.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2005-01-13Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN -152, lifted condensation level 972 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Nashville Metro, TN at 12:00Z on 2005-01-13The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 482 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 69 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-152 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
972 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
69 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
48 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
482 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
632 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Cairo (CIR), 23 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
07:05 UTC66.259160° 18 kt251002
07:25 UTC66.259160° 18 kt311001.7
07:45 UTC66.259160° 20 kt241001.4
08:05 UTC66.259160° 19 kt281001
08:25 UTC66.259160° 21 kt321000.7VCTS
08:45 UTC64.459180° 18 kt281001VCTSRA
09:05 UTC60.855.4260° 16 kt311003+TSRA
09:25 UTC260° 9 kt1002.4TSRA
09:45 UTC230° 5 kt1003.4+RA
10:05 UTC0° 0 kt1002.7+VCTSRA
10:25 UTC220° 3 kt1003.4RA
10:45 UTC57.255.40° 0 kt1003.7RA

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

The radar

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:04 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 2005 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of January 13, 2005

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
January 137:07 AM CSTF1Monroe, MS0.440$50,000
January 138:35 AM CSTF0Pearl River, MS0.120$10,000
January 135:58 PM ESTF1Calhoun, GA3.010025$260,000
January 136:15 PM ESTF0McDuffie, GA0.130
January 136:37 PM ESTF0Columbia, GA0.240
January 136:40 PM ESTF0Lincoln, GA0.130
January 136:52 PM ESTF0McCormick, SC0.240
January 137:13 PM ESTF2Laurens, SC12.03501$2.0 million
January 137:46 PM ESTF0Newberry, SC11.040

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.