EF2 tornado, Galva, Illinois, May 17, 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

May 17, 2017

Touchdown

9:20 PM CDT (02:20 UTC)

Lifted

9:21 PM CDT (02:21 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$40,000

County

Henry County

Touchdown point

41.153, -90.081

Lift-off point

41.168, -90.066

Record number

1705172020-01

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

• 2 snapped power poles with 2 leaning.
• Complete removal of roof with insulation found on all sides of trees and the house. A screen door and front door were blown off the eastside of the house as well. One person was injured.
• Mostly sporadic damage to trees around homesteads

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

A fast moving complex of severe thunderstorms developed and tracked over much of eastern Iowa, northwest Illinois, and northeast Missouri, as an area of low pressure lifted northeast into northwest Iowa. Widespread damaging winds, large hail, frequent lightning, and a few brief tornadoes were reported.

Tornado was rated EF-2 with peak winds of 120 mph, a path length of 1.29 miles and a max width 50 yards. Damage was to two snapped power poles, one home with significant damage to shingles. Another house had had roof completely removed and blew out doors with one minor injury at this location.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:46 UTC and running to 03:18 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:57 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.

Galesburg (GBG), 39 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:18 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

15 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.