EF2 tornado, New Hebron to Robinson Muni Arpt, Illinois, May 25, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 25, 2011

Touchdown

7:57 PM CDT (00:57 UTC)

Lifted

8:03 PM CDT (01:03 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

5.5 miles (8.8 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$920,000

County

Crawford County

Touchdown point

38.962, -87.742

Lift-off point

39.005, -87.656

Record number

1105251857-01

A deep area of low pressure lifting from the Plains into the Upper Midwest pulled a strong cold front eastward toward the Mississippi River during the afternoon of May 25th. Severe thunderstorms developed ahead of the cold front, as well as along a warm front lifting northward through the area. Many of the storms produced large hail up to the size of golf balls and damaging winds in excess of 60 mph. In addition, 6 tornadoes touched down across central Illinois, including an EF2 tornado that caused significant damage south of Robinson in Crawford County.

A tornado touched down about 3 miles south of Robinson, and tracked to the northeast. Fourteen homes sustained damage, with three homes losing most of their roof and one home being pushed three feet off its foundation. In addition, numerous outbuildings and garages were destroyed, numerous trees and power poles were blown down, and a large camper was rolled over.

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

46 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:11 UTC, 46 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:11 UTC and running to 01:41 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:39 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:55 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

93 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 94 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.