EF2 tornado, Winkel to Brownwood, Illinois, March 7, 2017

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

March 7, 2017

Touchdown

12:09 AM CST (06:09 UTC)

Lifted

12:13 AM CST (06:13 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$120,000

County

Tazewell County

Touchdown point

40.392, -89.538

Lift-off point

40.417, -89.496

Record number

1703070009-01

48 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 113 mph.

• Debris from grain bins that were destroyed.
• Irrigation unit tipped over
• Tree broken about 50 feet up
• Part of irrigation unit toppled

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

A strong cold front triggered a squall line across western Iowa into eastern Kansas during the afternoon of March 6th. These storms raced eastward and reached west-central Illinois by the late evening, then pushed across the remainder of central Illinois during the early morning hours of March 7th. The storms produced widespread wind gusts of 50-70 mph and 3 tornadoes. One tornado touched down near Easton in Mason County, while two tornadoes occurred further east in Tazewell County. The most significant tornado caused EF-2 damage in rural Tazewell County just northeast of Delavan.

A tornado touched down along Wagonseller Road about 5 miles southwest of Green Valley at 12:00 AM CST March 7th. The tornado quickly tracked northeastward and widened to around 150 yards and increased in intensity to EF-1 as it destroyed an outbuilding and an historic single room schoolhouse about 4 miles southwest of Green Valley. It then continued moving northeastward through mainly open fields, but did produce damage to 2 grain bins, a barn, and several trees along Towerline Rd. The tornado dissipated about 3 miles east-northeast of Green Valley at 12:06 AM CST.

A tornado touched down in an open field 1.4 miles north-northeast of Delavan at 12:09 CST. The tornado quickly tracked northeastward and widened to 200 yards, causing EF-2 damage to one outbuilding and EF-1 damage to several other outbuildings and trees. It continued northeastward before dissipating 4.1 miles northeast of Delavan at 12:13 AM CST.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:03 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:52 UTC and running to 07:24 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 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), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:07 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 2017 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.