EF4 Rochelle–Fairdale tornado, Illinois, April 9, 2015

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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF4

Date

April 9, 2015

Touchdown

6:39 PM CDT (23:39 UTC)

Lifted

7:20 PM CDT (00:20 UTC)

On the ground

41 minutes

Path length

30.1 miles (48.5 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

11

Property damage

$19 million

Counties

Lee, Ogle, DeKalb and Boone counties

Touchdown point

41.853, -89.290

Lift-off point

42.162, -88.880

Record number

1504091739-01

103 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF4. The highest wind the damage implies is 200 mph.

• adjacent to destroyed outbuilding
• no bolts just straight nails
• house 1. garage. note booted sill plates
• loss of one room of 2nd floor

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

Seven tornadoes were confirmed in north central Illinois in the NWS Chicago CWA. Six of the tornadoes formed from a single supercell. The atmosphere was ripe for severe weather due to highly anomalous moisture and instability for early April across the region. A strong low pressure system advanced into this favorable air mass. Combined with robust wind shear, this helped to trigger these potent storms. A long tracked violent tornado destroyed numerous homes and farmsteads along its path across north central Lee, eastern Ogle, northwest Dekalb, and southern Boone counties. This path included the far northwest side of Rochelle, Interstate-39, and a direct hit in the community of Fairdale where two fatalities occurred. This was the strongest tornado in the NWS Chicago CWA since the F5 tornado that struck Plainfield, IL on August 28th, 1990.

This is the second segment of the Rochelle-Fairdale EF-4 tornado. At its strongest, peak winds were estimated to be 200 mph which occurred during this segment of the storm. The tornado entered Ogle County just west of IL-38 and moved northeast where it ripped the roof off of a small barn. A neighborhood was hit on S Skare Court where damage was consistent with EF-3. Some of the homes had large sections of the roofs ripped off while some less well constructed homes (nails instead of bolts) had collapsed walls. The tornado continued northeast and intensified to EF-4 where several well constructed homes along South Richard Road and East Kuehl Court were completely destroyed with the slab swept clean. Several outbuildings were destroyed along East Hemstock Road and South Center Road. A residence on East Bethal Road received heavy damage with most of the outer walls collapsing. The tornado once again intensified to EF-4 near IL-251 and IL-64 where well constructed homes were swept clean off their foundation. A farmstead just northeast of the aforementioned intersection was also swept clean to the foundation. A heavy barn was thrown and rolled on East Lindenwood Road. In total, around 30 homes were damaged or destroyed around Rochelle. The tornado continued into Dekalb County just north of East Quarry Road. (Tornado 2b of 7).

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:35 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:55 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:52 UTC and running to 01:59 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 Enhanced 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 20:00 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.

Rochelle (RPJ), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Chicago radar (KLOT), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:40 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 2015 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

18 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.