Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2013

EF0 tornado, Owaneco, Illinois, May 9, 2013

This EF0 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Christian County on May 9, 2013, touching down at 5:41 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody.

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.

  1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

    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 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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
May 9, 2013
Touchdown
5:41 PM CDT (22:41 UTC)
Lifted
5:42 PM CDT (22:42 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.6 miles (0.9 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Christian County
Touchdown point
39.516, -89.193
Lift-off point
39.524, -89.192
Record number
1305091641-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Low pressure tracking out of the Plains was responsible for scattered thunderstorms across central Illinois during the afternoon and evening of May 9th. One storm produced wind damage to a few structures in rural Coles County, while another caused a lightning strike and ensuing fire in Clay County. Yet another cell produced a brief tornado in an open field in Christian County.

A tornado touched down in a field 2.4 miles north of Owaneco at 4:41 PM CST. The tornado traveled northward, then lifted 2.9 miles north of Owaneco at East 1200 North Road at 4:42 PM CST. No damage was reported.

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)ExpiredProductOffice
17:45 UTC20:30 UTCFlood AdvisoryILX

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. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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

10.7 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. May 9, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2013-05-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 18 joules per kilogram, CIN -126, lifted condensation level 1484 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2013-05-09The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 22 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 10 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
18 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-126 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1484 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
10 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
12 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
22 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
48 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

1.3 hours after it, 86 km from the path. May 10, 2013.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2013-05-10Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 257 joules per kilogram, CIN 0, lifted condensation level 532 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2013-05-10The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 110 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
257 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
0 J/kg
Surface CAPE
801 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
532 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
15 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
110 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
178 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.6
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:43 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)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:42 UTCTORNADO3 N OwanecoChristian, ILPUBLIC REPORT OF BRIEF TOUCHDOWN IN AN OPEN FIELD. NO DAMAGE REPORTED.
23:15 UTCHEAVY RAIN 0.924 Nw WindsorShelby, ILMEASURED 0.92 INCH RAIN ON THURSDAY.

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 May 9, 2013

7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 94:31 PM EDTEF0Norfolk, MA0.450$20,000
May 95:00 PM CDTEF0Kiowa, OK0.110
May 93:30 PM PDTEF0Wallowa, OR0.110
May 96:21 PM CDTEF0Jackson, OK0.120
May 98:14 PM EDTEF0Vigo, IN0.120$2,000
May 98:24 PM EDTEF0Vigo, IN0.120$2,000
May 911:35 PM CDTEF0Beauregard Parish, LA1.020$10,000

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.