EF2 tornado, Gillespie to East Gillespie, Illinois, May 31, 2013

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 31, 2013

Touchdown

8:49 PM CDT (01:49 UTC)

Lifted

8:52 PM CDT (01:52 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Macoupin County

Touchdown point

39.129, -89.827

Lift-off point

39.140, -89.804

Record number

1305311949-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Large power pole leaning. Lots of debris scattered in the farm fields.
• Loss of most of roof of home. 2 nearby garage buildings completely destroyed.
• Convergent pattern in tree damage. Damage path about 200 yards wide.
• Most of roof lifted off. Large tree in the front yard uprooted and thrown to the NNW.

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

Storms developed along an outflow boundary that was laid out along the I-70 corridor. The storms produced wind damage, large hail as well as 9 tornadoes. Two of the tornadoes were rated EF3 as they moved through the St. Louis metro area.

The tornado began on the west side of Gillespie, causing minor damage to an apartment complex on the southwest side of the intersection of Broadway Street and LJ Avenue. It blew out several windows on one of the apartment buildings. It then caused major damage to the north end of a brick gymnasium at Gillespie High School. The damage to the gymnasium was rated EF2. Then it proceeded to travel northeast, blowing the roof off of a house just northeast of the high school. Also, a large pine tree was snapped off at the base next to the house. The tornado continued to the northeast. There was extensive damage to trees and roofs along a west southwest to east northeast path through the town. The tornado destroyed a garage at the corner of Henry Street and Fulton Street. The tornado lifted and dissipated just north of the intersection of Harding Avenue and Illinois Route 16. The tornado path length was 1.5 miles with max path width of 150 yards. The damage was rated EF2 with max wind speeds of 115 MPH.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:31 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:45 UTC and running to 03:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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 St Louis radar (KLSX), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:49 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 2013 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

35 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.