EF2 tornado, Langham, Illinois, June 22, 2016

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

June 22, 2016

Touchdown

8:53 PM CDT (01:53 UTC)

Lifted

9:15 PM CDT (02:15 UTC)

On the ground

22 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.0 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

LaSalle and Grundy counties

Touchdown point

41.367, -88.710

Lift-off point

41.330, -88.563

Record number

1606221953-01

56 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABR and NWS ILX and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• four toppled or crumpled. preliminary
• Four trusses toppled or crumpled, one partially. preliminary.
• loss of roof. minor other damage.
• beginning area of north of Ottawa tornado

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

The evening of Wednesday, June 22 brought a favorable setup for tornadoes across northern Illinois. There were approximately 3 supercells which brought numerous tornadoes to the NWS Chicago CWA. NWS ground survey data combined with aerial photography, radar and satellite imagery, and detailed reports from trained storm spotters have helped to determine that 15 tornadoes occurred across the NWS Chicago County Warning Area.

This is a continuation of the tornado that began in LaSalle County. Approximately 2.3 miles to the north-northeast of Seneca, there was a major loss of roof panels off a farm outbuilding. As the tornado moved to the southeast, there was small limbs broken. (Tornado 10b of 15).

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

49 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:04 UTC, 49 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:11 UTC and running to 06:00 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 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 01:01 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.

Morris-Washburn (C09), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Chicago radar (KLOT), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:54 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 2016 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

19 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.