EF1 tornado, Trumbull, Illinois, April 3, 2014

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

April 3, 2014

Touchdown

8:30 AM CDT (13:30 UTC)

Lifted

8:33 AM CDT (13:33 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.6 km)

Path width

90 yards (82 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

38.106, -88.226

Lift-off point

38.106, -88.207

Record number

1404030730-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Corn stuble blown around and across County Road 800E.
• HOME WITH ATTACHED GARAGE LIFTED AND SEPARATED FROM WALLS. LARGE 42`X 66` MACHINE SHED WITH ATTACHED LEAN-TO PARTIALLY DE-ROOFED AND DOORS BLOWN INWARD. SEVERAL SMALL STRUCTURES OVERTURNED. APPROXIMATELY A DOZEN (MAINLY PINE) TREES SNAPPED OR UPROOTED.

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

Thunderstorms intensified within a zone of strong southerly low level winds that provided abundant warmth and moisture. These strong low level winds enhanced wind shear, which promoted the development of supercells with isolated tornadoes. The storms formed near a warm front that was draped across southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky. The storms occurred within a moist and moderately unstable air mass along and behind the warm front. The strong moisture feed contributed to torrential downpours that produced flash flooding in a number of counties. There was some major flash flooding in a corridor from Union County to Saline and Gallatin Counties during the evening.

At a home with an attached garage, the roof was lifted and partially separated from the walls. A large 42-by-66 foot machine shed with an attached lean-to was partially unroofed, and the doors were blown inward. Several small outbuildings were overturned. Approximately a dozen trees, mainly pine trees, were snapped or uprooted. Some debris was blown at least one-half mile away. The most intense damage occurred on County Road 1560N, northwest of Carmi. Peak winds were estimated near 100 mph.

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.

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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 12:54 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), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:31 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 2014 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

12 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.