EF0 tornado, New Philadelphia, Illinois, December 27, 2008

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

December 27, 2008

Touchdown

11:20 AM CST (17:20 UTC)

Lifted

11:21 AM CST (17:21 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

McDonough County

Touchdown point

40.480, -90.464

Lift-off point

40.483, -90.460

Record number

0812271120-01

Strong low pressure tracked from Oklahoma to northern Illinois on December 27, 2008. Unseasonably warm moist air flowing northward ahead of the low, combined with a strong cold front approaching from the west, triggered isolated severe thunderstorms in western Illinois.|These storms formed during the morning hours while temperatures were in the lower 60s. Near Carthage, power poles were snapped and half of a barn roof was blown off. Near New Philadelphia, an EF0 tornado with winds estimated at 80 mph, briefly touched down. A garage was destroyed with the debris field extending about a third of a mile.

A brief tornado touchdown occurred at about 1120 am CST 1/3 mile east of New Philadelphia near Highway 95. The EF0 tornado, about 50 yards in width, struck a garage tearing the roof off and blowing the back of the garage away. The debris littered a nearby field for up to 1/3 mile from where the garage had been. A person in the garage at the time was not injured, but described being blasted with a terrific wind filled with grass and leaves. The person also stated the event was over as fast as it had started. The temperature at the time of the tornado was 61F which was unseasonably warm for the end of December. Winds were estimated at 80 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 15:57 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), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:20 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 2008 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

9 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.