EF0 tornado, Berger to Burnham, Illinois, June 15, 2011

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

June 15, 2011

Touchdown

6:18 PM CDT (23:18 UTC)

Lifted

6:20 PM CDT (23:20 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.8 miles (1.3 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Cook County

Touchdown point

41.606, -87.582

Lift-off point

41.605, -87.569

Record number

1106151718-01

Strong thunderstorms moved across parts of northern Illinois during the early morning hours of June 15th. Behind this area of thunderstorms strong winds developed from a wake low, which produced damage in some areas.

The tornado began at approximately 518 PM CST at the Bishop Ford Expressway north of 159th Street. The tornado ended at 520 PM CST near the intersection of 158th Place and Paxton Avenue. It had a path length of 0.8 miles and a width of about 20 yards. The tornado was rated EF0 with winds 65 to 85 mph. The first signs of damage were at the Brown Meat Packing Company on Dutch Valley Road. The tornado caused damage to the roof of the meat packing plant. A 40 foot by 60 foot section of roofing was torn off and pieces of the roof were thrown 150 to 250 feet to the left of the tornado path, indicating rotation. An air conditioning unit was flipped and roof debris damaged a brick parapet. There was damage to a few shingles at the Sand Ridge Apartments on 158th Place. A few small tree limbs were also damaged. Debris from the roof of the plant also fell around the apartment complex.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 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 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 Chicago radar (KLOT), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:16 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

2 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.