EF3 tornado, Girard, Illinois, April 19, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

April 19, 2011

Touchdown

5:58 PM CDT (22:58 UTC)

Lifted

6:05 PM CDT (23:05 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (7.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Macoupin County

Touchdown point

39.443, -89.825

Lift-off point

39.450, -89.745

Record number

1104191658-02

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 150 mph.

• .40% of roof shingles removed. Garage door blown in. Garage wall blown out
• Shingles removed off roof.
• Some siding removed with one doormer badly damaged. Otherwise shingles and sofet damage. Large tree limb damage as well. Some damage to nearby shed as well.
• Shed behind house destroyed as well.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A warm front was lifting northward through the region, triggering numerous showers and thunderstorms. Some of the storms produced tornadoes as well as a lot of large hail. There were 6 tornadoes with this event, including an EF3.

The path of this tornado was a very curved one as it initially tornado touched down about 2.5 miles west of Girard, Illinois, on Emerson Airline Road. It caused extensive damage to a couple of houses in this location. It then travelled to the northeast crossing Henry Road, north of the intersection with Emerson Airline Road, and damaging 3 farmsteads. One home was destroyed and another home sustained moderate damage, trapping the residents in the basement until they could be rescued. Also, several barns were destroyed in this area. The tornado began to travel on a more easterly course, damaging or destroying several farmsteads on Neff Road. Numerous outbuildings were destroyed in this area and one house was destroyed. As it approached Pleasant Hill Road approximately 1.2 miles northwest of Girard, it caused major damage to a brick home and destroyed all of the outbuildings. The tornado continued to travel to the east, destroying a farm about a mile north of town on Illinois Route 4. Several cows were killed in this location. Then the tornado began to curve back to the southeast, crossing Prose Road about half a mile south of the intersection with Substation Road. In this location it caused extensive damage to a brick home with most of the exterior walls destroyed but with the interior wall structure intact. This damage was rated EF3. The tornado continued to the southeast. It caused moderate roof damage to a house on Kimes Road near intersection with Adams Road. The tornado then lifted and dissipated on Adams Road after hitting one last farmstead and causing minor damage. Several farms sustained damage along the path of the tornado with many of the houses that were damaged rated EF2 with large portions of the roofs badly damaged. Numerous outbuildings were either destroyed or sustained major damage along this track as well. Also, about 20 power poles were blown down along Illinois Route 4 just north of town. The average path width of the tornado was 150 yards with a maximum width of 200 yards. The highest rating of the damage was EF3 and with peak wind speeds of 150 mph. Two miles west of Girard, two people heading for the basement to seek shelter from the tornado, sustained minor cuts and bruises. Because the path of the tornado was curved the actual total path length of the tornado was 5.1 miles, not 4.3 miles as displayed in the main header for this event.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:36 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:05 UTC and running to 01:36 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 19:37 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), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:57 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 2011 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 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.