EF1 tornado, Fandon to Pennington Pt, Illinois, May 24, 2019

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

May 24, 2019

Touchdown

12:41 PM CDT (17:41 UTC)

Lifted

12:45 PM CDT (17:45 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

1.9 miles (3.0 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

McDonough County

Touchdown point

40.367, -90.559

Lift-off point

40.360, -90.526

Record number

1905241141-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN and NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Tornado reported by Fulton Count;y ESDA. End of Tornado.
• Start of tornado. Tree limbs damaged.

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

A warm front lifted northward into the area Friday, May 24, sparking widespread thunderstorms in the morning/early afternoon time frame and again in the early evening. Two tornadoes were occurred in McDonough County during the early afternoon. Towards evening, another tornadic storm developed, producing two tornadoes. The first occurred in Johnson County just southwest of Iowa City, and the second in Cedar County just north of West Branch.

A high-end EF1 tornado uprooted and snapped large trees and destroyed outbuildings at two farmsteads, and snapped some power poles. The tornado was on the ground for about 5 minutes.

The second of two tornadoes quickly developed and snapped power poles before hitting a farmstead, where it snapped trees and destroyed outbuildings. The tornado was on the ground for about 4 minutes.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:19 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:45 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 16:39 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), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:40 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 2019 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

18 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.