EF1 tornado, Metropolis Muni Arpt to Midway, Illinois, April 3, 2018

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 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF1

Date

April 3, 2018

Touchdown

6:29 PM CDT (23:29 UTC)

Lifted

6:43 PM CDT (23:43 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

10.6 miles (17.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$130,000

County

Massac County

Touchdown point

37.176, -88.755

Lift-off point

37.198, -88.565

Record number

1804031729-01

18 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS PAH, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• 50 yards wide trees snapped and uprooted
• Several homes had shingles missing. Large limbs down, expecially with Bradford Pears.
• Large limbs down. Roof of barn overhang lofted into nearby tree.
• Shingles of homes, few large limbs down

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

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms occurred during the afternoon and evening. Several tornadoes were spawned along a line of fast-moving thunderstorms. Four of the tornadoes were associated with a persistent circulation that moved east across Williamson and Saline Counties, passing just north of Marion and Harrisburg. The circulation exited southern Illinois along the Wabash River southeast of Carmi. A fifth tornado was associated with a circulation that tracked east across Massac and Pope Counties in the southern tip of the state. The severe storm outbreak occurred ahead of a cold front that accelerated east-southeast toward the mid Mississippi Valley. Cooling aloft ahead of a shortwave trough over the Plains, combined with diurnal heating and moist southerly winds, resulted in a corridor of deepening convection ahead of the front. Steep mid-level lapse rates and strong effective wind shear promoted some large hail within the strongest storms.

This tornado touched down just half a mile southwest of the Metropolis airport, then moved east along the northern city limit of Metropolis. Numerous buildings sustained shingle damage. Large tree limbs were blown down, and Bradford pear trees were snapped. A grain bin was destroyed. At the end of the damage track, most of the metal roof was blown off a barn. This location is where the tornado reached its peak intensity, which was estimated near 90 mph. The tornado lifted only about a mile before reaching the Pope County line in national forestland.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS PAH issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:22 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:32 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:38 UTC and running to 00:46 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 19:33 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.

Metropolis IL (M30), 8 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Paducah radar (KPAH), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:28 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 2018 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.