EF1 tornado, Chanute Afb to Dillsburg, Illinois, June 26, 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

June 26, 2018

Touchdown

8:27 PM CDT (01:27 UTC)

Lifted

8:35 PM CDT (01:35 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

3.9 miles (6.2 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$37,000

County

Champaign County

Touchdown point

40.273, -88.102

Lift-off point

40.315, -88.053

Record number

1806261927-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• half of roof gone on south side of barn. 5 trees damaged. debris blown into corn on other side of road.
• tornado came through cornfield here. looking southwest
• weak tornado entered cornfield here going northeast.
• some tree damage. also tornado entered next cornfield to east of house.

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

Isolated thunderstorms developed in a very warm and humid airmass well ahead of an approaching cold front during the late afternoon and evening of June 26th. One of the cells produced an EF-1 tornado southeast of Rantoul in Champaign County. Several outbuildings and trees were damaged along the path of the tornado: however, no injuries were reported.

A tornado touched down in a corn field 3.3 miles southeast of Rantoul at 8:27 PM CDT. The tornado damaged the roof of a large shed, then continued northeastward through farm fields before damaging trees, one of which fell onto a car. As the tornado crossed U.S. Highway 136, it damaged the roofs of two garages and a large barn. The tornado dissipated in a field 1.9 miles west-northwest of Gifford at 8:35 PM 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.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:26 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

17 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.