EF1 tornado, West Liberty to Rafetown, Illinois, November 17, 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

November 17, 2013

Touchdown

12:25 PM CST (18:25 UTC)

Lifted

12:29 PM CST (18:29 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.7 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Jasper County

Touchdown point

38.855, -88.088

Lift-off point

38.868, -88.024

Record number

1311171225-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

• Three barn roofs blown off. One barn collapsed. One power pole snapped.
• Several homes with shingles and siding blown off. Multiple trees damaged.
• Three utility poles broken. Semi trailer turned over. One house with weak roof blown off.

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

A powerful low pressure system tracked from the central Rockies toward the southern Great Lakes on November 17th. As the system approached central Illinois, unseasonably warm and humid air was pulled northward into the area, resulting in high temperatures soaring into the 70s. This very unstable airmass coupled with strong jet stream level winds aloft created numerous strong to severe thunderstorms. Many of the storms became supercells, producing damaging long-track tornadoes. A total of 10 tornadoes touched down across central Illinois, including an EF4 tornado that severely impacted the community of Washington in Tazewell County. Three people were killed and 142 others were injured as the storms tracked through the area. Total damage was estimated at 1.06 billion dollars across central Illinois.

A tornado touched down on the northwest side of West Liberty at 12:25 PM CST, then tracked northeastward before lifting 3.4 miles ENE of West Liberty at 12:29 PM CST. Roof and siding damage occurred to 12 homes, while the roof was completely torn off an older one-story house. A semi-truck was overturned and several trees were uprooted. A barn was destroyed and 2 sheds had their roofs torn off about 1 mile ENE of West Liberty before the tornado dissipated.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:44 UTC and running to 21:02 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:30 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:26 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

75 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 76 of them

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.