EF1 tornado, Buckhart to Lanesville, 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 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

February 20, 2014

Touchdown

3:57 PM CST (21:57 UTC)

Lifted

4:06 PM CST (22:06 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

8.3 miles (13.3 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$990,000

County

Sangamon County

Touchdown point

39.765, -89.391

Lift-off point

39.856, -89.291

Record number

1402201557-02

26 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 110 mph.

• 2 wood poles broken, several others leaning
• Lean-to roof off. Roof of main building torn off on one side.
• 4 grain bins damaged. One toppled, 3 bashed in on side.
• metal debris on top of wire

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

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.

A tornado touched down at 3:57 PM CST 3 miles south of Mechanicsburg. The tornado tracked northeastward damaging numerous outbuildings and the roofs of several homes. A trailer was flipped over, multiple power poles were snapped, and numerous trees were damaged as well before the tornado lifted 2.6 miles west of Illiopolis at 4:06 PM CST.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:49 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 19:38 UTC and running to 22:46 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. 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.

Springfield (SPI), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:56 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.