Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2013
EF0 tornado, Gibson City to Elliott, Illinois, April 18, 2013
From Gibson City to Elliott, this EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Ford County on April 18, 2013, touching down at 8:36 AM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $15,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- April 18, 2013
- Touchdown
- 8:36 AM CDT (13:36 UTC)
- Lifted
- 8:37 AM CDT (13:37 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (0.9 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $15,000
- County
- Ford County
- Touchdown point
- 40.456, -88.321
- Lift-off point
- 40.462, -88.313
- Record number
- 1304180736-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Strong storms kicked off record setting heavy rains which resulted in record crests across area streams and rivers. Many locations across northern Illinois received 4 to 7 inches of rainfall, with several reports of over 7 inches of rain out of Du Page County.
Witnesses described a tornado briefly touching down and hitting a barn, killing two horses, then lifting back up. Six power poles were also blown down. Emergency managers found debris as far as approximately six miles away.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20:35 UTC | 01:48 UTC | Tornado Watch | LOT |
| 10:58 UTC | 17:08 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | LOT |
| 15:00 UTC | 14:25 UTC | Wind Advisory | LOT |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:37 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 air that afternoon
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.
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z
1.6 hours before the tornado, 42 km from the path. April 18, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -60 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 474 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -203 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -478 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z
10.4 hours after it, 42 km from the path. April 19, 2013.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 6 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 15 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 476 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 82 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 34 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -5 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 131 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.7 K/km
The radar
The Lincoln radar (KILX), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:34 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Gibson City | Ford, IL | BARN DOWN NEAR 775 EAST RT 9. 2 ANIMALS DECEASED. 6 POWER LINES DOWN. DEBRIS FIELD 3.5 MILES. |
| 12:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Rantoul | Champaign, IL | 15 POWER POLES DOWN ON US ROUTE 136. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2013 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 18, 2013
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 18 | 1:07 AM CDT | EF1 | Mayes, OK | 3.5 | 350 | 2 | $750,000 | |
| April 18 | 1:30 AM CDT | EF2 | Delaware, OK | 8.0 | 800 | $400,000 | ||
| April 18 | 3:08 PM CDT | EF1 | Ashley, AR | 4.3 | 150 | $20,000 | ||
| April 18 | 4:38 PM CDT | EF0 | Chicot, AR | 0.5 | 50 | |||
| April 18 | 5:03 PM CDT | EF1 | Issaquena, MS | 2.0 | 50 | $25,000 | ||
| April 18 | 5:09 PM CDT | EF0 | Washington, MS | 0.3 | 50 | |||
| April 18 | 5:19 PM CDT | EF1 | East Carroll Parish, LA | 2.9 | 75 | $50,000 | ||
| April 18 | 5:21 PM CDT | EF0 | Sharkey, MS | 1.6 | 50 | |||
| April 18 | 5:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Madison Parish, LA | 0.4 | 50 | |||
| April 18 | 5:29 PM CDT | EF0 | Sharkey, MS | 0.3 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| April 18 | 8:24 PM CDT | EF0 | Graves, KY | 0.3 | 100 | $10,000 | ||
| April 18 | 8:31 PM CDT | EF0 | Graves, KY | 3.2 | 100 | $3,000 | ||
| April 18 | 8:54 PM CDT | EF0 | Marshall, KY | 3.6 | 150 | $43,000 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.