EF0 tornado, Smithfield to Cuba, Illinois, August 16, 2018

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

August 16, 2018

Touchdown

4:38 PM CDT (21:38 UTC)

Lifted

4:48 PM CDT (21:48 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Fulton County

Touchdown point

40.468, -90.264

Lift-off point

40.451, -90.209

Record number

1808161538-01

3 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 85 mph.

• Small pole barn blown apart, minor damage to shingles on house, pool deck damaged.

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

A slow-moving frontal boundary interacted with a highly unstable and moderately sheared environment to trigger strong to severe thunderstorms across parts of central Illinois from the late afternoon of August 16th into the early morning hours of August 17th. A tornado touched down near Smithfield in Fulton County. Other cells produced sporadic wind damage and hail as large as golf balls. Excessive rainfall rates created localized flash flooding in Edinburg in Christian County.

A tornado touched down in a field about 1.5 miles ESE of Smithfield at 4:38pm CDT. The tornado travelled slowly southeastward, impacting one farmstead along its path. A pole barn and small shed were destroyed, with flying debris from the barn causing minor roof and siding damage to the house. The tornado continued along its path doing minor crop damage along the way before dissipating 3 miles SSW of Cuba at 4:48pm CDT.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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.

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 84 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:36 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

3 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.