EF0 tornado, Tower Hill to Shelbyville, Illinois, May 13, 2009

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

May 13, 2009

Touchdown

12:22 AM CDT (05:22 UTC)

Lifted

12:24 AM CDT (05:24 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$45,000

County

Shelby County

Touchdown point

39.395, -88.805

Lift-off point

39.401, -88.780

Record number

0905132322-01

An impressive upper-level wave tracking across the Northern Plains helped push a strong cold front toward the Mississippi River by the evening of May 13th. An increasingly unstable and sheared airmass across central Illinois allowed severe thunderstorms to develop in advance of the front. Widespread wind damage occurred with the storms, with 4 tornadoes touching down around the area as well. The thunderstorms also produced torrential rainfall, with widespread 2 to 4 inch amounts reported. This produced flash flooding in much of central and southeast Illinois from the evening of the 13th until the morning of the 14th.

A tornado briefly touched down 2 miles south of Tower Hill, then tracked eastward to 2 miles south-southeast of Tower Hill. A shed was severely damaged and front porches were torn off several homes. Shingles were blown off houses and numerous trees were damaged.

A tornado touched down 1 mile southwest of Shelbyville, then tracked eastward to 1/2 mile southeast of Shelbyville. Numerous shallow-rooted trees were torn or uprooted. The tornado tracked through a campground, where several unoccupied trailers were damaged by falling trees and limbs. A carport was destroyed and porches were torn away from a few trailers. In addition, 2 unanchored metal sheds were destroyed.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:19 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:57 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 03:00 UTC and running to 06:41 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. The outlook in force was issued at 01:02 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.

Effingham (1H2), 43 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 96 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:23 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 2009 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

19 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.