F2 tornado, Hillsboro, Illinois, April 2, 2006

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

April 2, 2006

Touchdown

5:50 PM CDT (22:50 UTC)

Path length

20.0 miles (32.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

39.150, -89.480

Lift-off point

39.370, -89.100

Record number

237

A tornado first formed on the south side of Hillsboro where it caused a narrow path of sign and window damage at a car dealership and two gasoline stations, and blew metal sheeting into nearby trees at a home improvement store. It then destroyed barns one mile southeast of Irving and 2 miles south of Witt. The barn damage south of Witt was rated F1. The tornado then destroyed a metal shed 3 miles south of Nokomis and lofted the sheet metal up to a mile downstream. It also caused minor damage to a grain bin on a farm about three miles southeast of Nokomis. It then caused major damage to a machine shed three miles east of Nokomis where the sheet metal was blown one half mile downstream. The tornado then intensified to nearly 200 yards wide where it toppled and destroyed two high tension electric power line towers about 5 miles east of Nokomis. The damage was rated low end F2. The tornado then weakened and destroyed another grain bin and caused minor damage before dissipating near the Shelby County line.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:41 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:17 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:17 UTC and running to 23:39 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Lincoln radar (KILX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:52 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

66 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 67 of them

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.