EF2 tornado, Enfield to Centerville, Illinois, January 22, 2012

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

January 22, 2012

Touchdown

10:18 PM CST (04:18 UTC)

Lifted

10:32 PM CST (04:32 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

18.0 miles (29.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

38.033, -88.365

Lift-off point

38.233, -88.152

Record number

1201222218-01

A potent upper-level trough moved east into eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, before assuming a negative tilt and accelerating east-northeast across the Mid-Mississippi and Lower Ohio Valleys. The associated surface low tracked northeast from Kansas across northern Missouri to southern Wisconsin. Ahead of the low and trough, a south-southwesterly low-level jet in excess of 50 knots expanded east across the Mid-Mississippi Valley. An expansive quasi-linear convective system formed along the lead cold front trailing southward from the surface low. Despite rather meager instability, very strong low and mid-level wind fields resulted in organized storm structures with pockets of damaging wind, large hail, and a few isolated tornadoes.

The tornado's strength was EF-0 to EF-1 for most of its path, except near the intersection of Route 14 and U.S. Highway 45. Near this intersection just south of Enfield, a 60-by-105 foot storage barn with wooden truss and steel wall construction was destroyed. Debris from the barn was blown up to 400 yards away. Many of the contents of the barn were lost. Two combines were damaged. A nearby car-and-a-half cinder block garage was destroyed, with concrete blocks thrown over 100 yards. One block was hurled through a window of a pickup truck. A dog pen on the north side of the garage was blown away, and two dogs were missing. A 40-foot tower was bent halfway up. A nearby house and barn sustained minimal damage. Several smaller barns were damaged or destroyed along the path. A greenhouse was destroyed near Centerville. Several trees were down and snapped. Two power lines were blown down across Illinois Route 14 just east of Highway 45. Route 14 was closed for about an hour and a half. Many utility poles were snapped off or leaning along both U.S. 45 and Illinois Route 14, as well as a few other locations along the path. This tornado struck some of the same property that the 1925 Tri-State Tornado devastated. Peak winds were estimated near 120 mph. The average path width was about 50 yards.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:28 UTC and running to 05:46 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 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.

Carmi (CUL), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 49 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:16 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 2012 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.