Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2017
EF0 tornado, Princeville to Dunlap, Illinois, July 10, 2017
From Princeville to Dunlap, this EF0 tornado ran 1.6 miles across Peoria County on July 10, 2017, touching down at 5:45 PM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- July 10, 2017
- Touchdown
- 5:45 PM CDT (22:45 UTC)
- Lifted
- 5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)
- On the ground
- 8 minutes
- Path length
- 1.6 miles (2.6 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Peoria County
- Touchdown point
- 40.886, -89.740
- Lift-off point
- 40.884, -89.709
- Record number
- 1707101645-01
The damage survey
2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A nearly stationary frontal boundary extending from southern Lake Michigan southwestward to the Iowa/Missouri border triggered a round of severe thunderstorms across portions of west-central Illinois during the late afternoon and evening of July 10th. Most of the storms were confined to areas along and west of the I-55 corridor. Due to increasing amounts of low-level wind shear ahead of an approaching disturbance, several of the storms began rotating...with one cell spawning a brief tornado just south of Princeville in Peoria County. Other storms produced 60 to 70mph wind gusts and hail as large as tennis balls in Fairview in Fulton County.
A tornado briefly touched down in a field 3.1 miles SSE of Princeville at 5:45 PM CDT. The tornado tracked ENE and quickly dissipated 2.2 miles NW of Dunlap at 5:53 PM CDT. No damage was reported.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
0 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:45 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:34 UTC | 11:16 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 10:51 UTC | 11:18 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 22:31 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 22:45 UTC | 23:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILX |
| 22:59 UTC | 04:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | ILX |
| 23:01 UTC | 23:30 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILX |
| 23:03 UTC | 23:19 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILX |
| 23:17 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 23:42 UTC | 00:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 23:52 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | ILX |
| 23:58 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
| 00:12 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | ILX |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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 air that afternoon
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.
Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z
10.8 hours before the tornado, 104 km from the path. July 10, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -488 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1825 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 65 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 221 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 286 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.8 K/km
Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z
1.2 hours after it, 104 km from the path. July 11, 2017.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2871 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -20 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 5476 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1254 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 33 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 47 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.1
- Supercell composite
- 0.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.6 K/km
The radar
The Lincoln radar (KILX), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:42 UTC | TORNADO | 2 S Princeville | Peoria, IL | BRIEFLY TOUCHED DOWN IN FIELD. LARGE ROTATING WALL CLOUD BECOMING RAIN WRAPPED. CORRECTED TIME. |
| 22:45 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | Nw Laura | Peoria, IL | |
| 23:21 UTC | HAIL 1 | Brimfield | Peoria, IL | |
| 23:38 UTC | HAIL 1 | 3 Se Brimfield | Peoria, IL | |
| 23:54 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Hanna City | Peoria, IL | |
| 23:57 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | Hanna City | Peoria, IL | |
| 00:02 UTC | HAIL 1 | 4 E Hanna City | Peoria, IL | |
| 00:09 UTC | HAIL 1 | 3 S Hanna City | Peoria, IL | |
| 00:15 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 5 E London Mills | Fulton, IL | |
| 00:20 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 3 N Fairview | Fulton, IL | RELAYED BY EMA |
| 00:20 UTC | HAIL 2.5 | Fairview | Fulton, IL | RELAYED BY EMA. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 00:22 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.32 | Peoria International Ai | Peoria, IL | RAIN FELL IN 25 MINUTES |
| 00:23 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Ene Pekin | Tazewell, IL | TREES UPROOTED. TIME ESTIMATED. |
| 00:23 UTC | HAIL 1 | Pekin | Tazewell, IL | |
| 00:27 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 2 Wsw Farmington | Fulton, IL | |
| 01:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2.25 | Morton | Tazewell, IL | |
| 01:00 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2.6 | Morton | Tazewell, IL | FELL IN 1.5 HOURS |
| 01:01 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | South Pekin | Tazewell, IL | 2 FOOT DIAMETER TREE FELL ON CAR |
| 01:30 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.79 | 4 Sse Pekin | Tazewell, IL | RAIN FELL IN 2.5 HOURS |
| 01:45 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.6 | 1 N Morton | Tazewell, IL | RAIN FELL IN 30 MINUTES. DELAYED REPORT, RELAYED BY BROADCAST MEDIA. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 10, 2017
6 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 10 | 12:00 PM MDT | Unrated | Garfield, UT | 0.1 | 1 | |||
| July 10 | 3:57 PM EDT | EF0 | Beaver, PA | 3.2 | 75 | $30,000 | ||
| July 10 | 7:35 PM EDT | EF0 | Meigs, OH | 0.4 | 50 | $15,000 | ||
| July 10 | 7:53 PM EDT | EF1 | Cass, IN | 3.8 | 200 | |||
| July 10 | 7:58 PM EDT | EF1 | Miami, IN | 3.0 | 100 | |||
| July 10 | 8:14 PM EDT | EF0 | Mercer, OH | 6.3 | 150 | $10,000 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.