EF0 tornado, Empire to Colfax, Illinois, December 1, 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

December 1, 2018

Touchdown

7:21 PM CST (01:21 UTC)

Lifted

7:22 PM CST (01:22 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

McLean County

Touchdown point

40.410, -88.767

Lift-off point

40.412, -88.768

Record number

1812011921-01

34 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 114 mph.

• debris in the field to the east about 200 yds
• Damage is 200 yards to the west of dat point.
• debris in the field to the west of n2850 rd
• Doors to barn were on west and east side. Lots of tree damage in front yard, southwest of barn.

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

An historic tornado outbreak occurred across Illinois on December 1st, with a total of 29 tornadoes touching down across the central part of the state. This made it the largest December tornado outbreak in the state of Illinois since 1957, and the third largest tornado outbreak across Illinois in any month since 1950. Within the National Weather Service Lincoln County Warning Area (CWA), 20 tornadoes touched down...with the most significant being an EF-3 tornado that tore through the city of Taylorville in Christian County. Despite several communities being directly impacted and experiencing major damage, there were no fatalities reported. The severe weather was caused by a deep area of low pressure that tracked from eastern Kansas into north-central Illinois. Warm air surging northward ahead of the low allowed temperatures to soar into the upper 50s and lower 60s, resulting in a narrow corridor of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) values of 500-1000J/kg ahead of an approaching occluded front. Thanks to ample low-level wind shear, numerous supercell thunderstorms developed within the instability axis by mid to late afternoon. Many of the storms produced tornadoes over the next several hours before the storms gradually weakened by mid-evening.

A tornado touched down one-half mile north of the Dewitt/McLean County line about 4.4 miles south of Leroy at 7:06 PM CST. It damaged trees, an outbuilding, the roof of a house, and toppled a road sign before quickly dissipating at 7:07 PM CST.

A tornado touched down 3.8 miles southwest of Ellsworth at 7:21 PM CST. It damaged a large outbuilding before quickly dissipating at 7:22 PM CST.

A tornado touched down 3 miles west of Colfax at 7:42 PM CST. It destroyed outbuildings and damaged trees before quickly dissipating 3.1 miles west-northwest of Colfax at 7:44 PM CST.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:13 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:17 UTC and running to 02:48 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 00:59 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.

Bloomington/Norm (BMI), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:20 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

39 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.