EF1 tornado, Waggoner, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

May 31, 2013

Touchdown

9:02 PM CDT (02:02 UTC)

Lifted

9:06 PM CDT (02:06 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.9 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

39.331, -89.681

Lift-off point

39.370, -89.620

Record number

1305312002-01

25 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 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.
• large tree branches on a number of trees. approx width 40 yds
• debris blown 200 yards to the northeast

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.

A tornado touched down half a mile north of the intersection of County Road 100E and 2200N or 3.5 miles south-southwest of Waggoner, Illinois. Several large tree limbs 6 to 10 inches in diameter were blown down by the tornado. The tornado path at this location was 30 yards wide. The tornado traveled northeast and damaged one barn and a few outbuildings on Goby Avenue, about 1.5 miles west of I-55. The roof of two outbuildings were uplifted and tossed 100 to 150 yards to the northeast. Another outbuilding was severely damaged on Coalfield Avenue, half a quarter of a mile west of I-55. Damage intensity was rated EF1. Debris from this machine shed was tossed across a corn field and across I-55. The tornado then crossed I-55, blowing over three tractor trailers. No injuries were reported. The tornado then damaged a third farmstead on County Road 2500N approximately a quarter of a mile east of I-55. Windows were blown inward on a two story farm home and two machine sheds were severely damaged. The damage intensity was rated EF1 and damage was 40 yards wide. The tornado continued to move northeast and downed large tree branches 6 to 10 inches in diameter on East Waggoner Road, about 2 miles east southeast of Waggoner, Illinois. The tornado then lifted and dissipated. The tornado path length was 4.3 miles with a max path width of 50 yards. The damage was rated EF1 with max wind speeds estimated between 90 and 100 MPH.

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:50 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:26 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 0.05 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.

Litchfield (3LF), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 93 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:59 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.