EF2 tornado, Nokomis to Henton, Illinois, February 20, 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 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

February 20, 2014

Touchdown

4:09 PM CST (22:09 UTC)

Lifted

4:33 PM CST (22:33 UTC)

On the ground

24 minutes

Path length

22.4 miles (36.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$600,000

Counties

Montgomery, Christian and Shelby counties

Touchdown point

39.259, -89.234

Lift-off point

39.469, -88.917

Record number

1402201609-01

50 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and 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.

• one wall still partially up
• Garage tilted over. Owner got text alert while outside. Police scanner alert after warning.
• Covered porch with significant loss of roof. Shingles gone on main home.
• Not a good angle but owner did not like us here.

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

A strong cold front moved through the region, triggering showers and thunderstorms. There were several reports of damaging winds and large hail. Also, four tornadoes occurred in our area.

A rapidly deepening area of low pressure tracked from near Kansas City to southwest Wisconsin by the evening of February 20th. Thunderstorms developed along the trailing cold front across Missouri during the early afternoon, then pushed eastward into central Illinois during the late afternoon into the early evening. Eight tornadoes touched down across central Illinois, including an EF-2 tornado south of Pana in Christian County. In addition, high rainfall rates associated with the storms combined with rapid snow-melt to produce widespread flash flooding, mainly east of the I-55 corridor.

The tornado touched down 4 miles south southeast of Nokomis at the intersection of E 25th Road and Mt. Zion Trail. In this location it took a large section of shingles off of a garage roof and twisted the entire structure slightly off its foundation. A little further to the northeast it took a large section of roof off of a barn. Some of the metal panels from the roof were thrown about half a mile to the northeast of the structure. Just northeast of the barn, a double trussed metal transmission tower was blown down. Damage in this area was rated EF1. The tornado continued to the northeast. Just north of the intersection of Oconee Avenue and E 28th Road, a two foot diameter oak tree was uprooted. Also, in this location there was a 50 yard wide path of major tree damage. Several trees were uprooted on the west side of Litz Road, about six tenths of a mile north of the intersection of Litz Road and CR 2050N. From there the tornado continued to the northeast and crossed into Shelby County (WFO Lincoln���s county warning area), about a third of a mile south of the intersection of E 30th Road and N 22nd Avenue. For Montgomery County portion of the tornado, the maximum intensity was EF1 with a max wind speed of 100 mph. The path length of this segment was 6.3 miles and a max width of 50 yards. Overall the maximum intensity was EF2 (in Shelby County about 3.5 miles north northwest of Tower Hill). The total path length was 22.2 miles with a max path width of 200 yards.

This tornado crossed into Christian County from Shelby County 2.9 miles south of Pana at 4:19 PM CST. The tornado damaged several outbuildings, trees and a garage south and east of Pana before crossing back into Shelby County 3.0 miles east of Pana at 4:25 PM CST.

This tornado crossed into Shelby County from Christian County 3.6 miles west of Tower Hill at 4:25 PM CST. The tornado increased in intensity, doing significant damage to the roof of a house and causing one minor injury about 3 miles north-northwest of Tower Hill. The tornado continued to the northeast, dissipating near the intersection of county roads 1700 North and 1200 East, or 3 miles west-southwest of Westerveldt at 4:33 PM CST.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:36 UTC and running to 22:45 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:37 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 Lincoln radar (KILX), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:10 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

33 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.