Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2007

EF0 tornado, Baylis to Perry, Illinois, September 30, 2007

From Baylis to Perry, this EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Pike County on September 30, 2007, touching down at 9:05 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

  3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. EF4166 to 200 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. EF5over 200 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
EF0
Date
September 30, 2007
Touchdown
9:05 PM CDT (02:05 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Pike County
Touchdown point
39.730, -90.920
Lift-off point
39.730, -90.920
Record number
0709302005-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A strong cold front moved through the region, triggering strong to severe thunderstorms during the evening hours.

A tornado briefly touched down on a farm on the south side of town. It destroyed a barn before lifting and dissipating. Some of the debris from the barn was found a mile away.

A tornado touched down 1.7 miles west southwest of Perry off of Township Road 3225E. It travelled to the east northeast with intermittent touchdowns occurring until the tornado reached the southern portion of Perry. On the south side of Perry, a vacant mobile home had its roof and northwest corner ripped off. Another mobile home had a tree land on it causing extensive damage and two children in the home sustained minor cuts and bruises. Also, 3 homes sustained window and shingle damage, a barn lost part of its roof, and numerous trees and tree limbs were blown down. Two vehicles sustained damage from fallen tree limbs. The tornado then lifted and dissipated.

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
01:56 UTC02:30 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLSX
02:13 UTC02:39 UTCTornado WarningLSX

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 00:49 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), 00:00Z

2.1 hours before the tornado, 203 km from the path. October 1, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2007-10-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -71918, lifted condensation level 2091 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2007-10-01The 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 124 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-71918 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
2091 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
124 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
6.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

9.9 hours after it, 203 km from the path. October 1, 2007.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2007-10-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 690 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°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, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2007-10-01The 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 77 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 29 knots.193958Sfc1 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
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
690 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
77 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
87 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The St Louis radar (KLSX), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:06 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.

What was reported nearby

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

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
02:05 UTCTSTM WND DMGBaylisPike, ILBARN DAMAGE NEAR BAYLIS. TIME ESTIMATED.
02:15 UTCTORNADO1 Wsw PerryPike, IL*** 2 INJ *** TORNADO DAMAGE STRETCHED FROM 1 1/2 MILES WEST-SOUTHWEST OF PERRY TO THE SOUTH SIDE OF PERRY...WITH THE WIDTH OF THE DAMAGE VARYING BETWEEN 20 AND 40 YARDS. 2 MINOR INJURIES TO CHILDEN IN MOBILE HOMES ON TH

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 30, 2007

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 304:27 PM CDTEF0Sioux, IA0.150
September 306:26 PM CDTEF2Marion, IA21.91,250$4.1 million
September 306:26 PM CDTEF0Sac, IA4.230
September 306:48 PM CDTEF1Poweshiek, IA5.0150$250,000
September 309:15 PM CDTEF0Pike, IL2.0402

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.