Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2020

Unrated tornado, Barnett to Waggoner, Illinois, May 28, 2020

From Barnett to Waggoner, this Unrated tornado ran 2.9 miles across Montgomery County on May 28, 2020, touching down at 5:50 PM CDT and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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 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. Unratedthis tornado

    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.

The record

Rating
Unrated
Date
May 28, 2020
Touchdown
5:50 PM CDT (22:50 UTC)
Lifted
5:55 PM CDT (22:55 UTC)
On the ground
5 minutes
Path length
2.9 miles (4.6 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Montgomery County
Touchdown point
39.313, -89.671
Lift-off point
39.351, -89.650
Record number
2005281650-01

The damage survey

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry.

  • Estimated starting location and time of landspout based on video and photos
  • Approximate end point based on emergency management report.

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

What the Weather Service recorded

As a cold front moved through the region, widespread showers and storms developed. Some of the storms produced damaging winds, large hail, flash flooding and even one isolated tornado.

Based on multiple images and videos provided by several parties, a landspout tornado formed at approximately 2250 UTC and tracked along the I-55 corridor. The starting and ending points are estimated and based on information received.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
22:50 UTC23:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningLSX

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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 air that afternoon

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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 128 km from the path. May 28, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2020-05-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 60 joules per kilogram, CIN -41, lifted condensation level 966 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2020-05-28The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -37 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 25 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
60 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-41 J/kg
Surface CAPE
216 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
966 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-37 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 128 km from the path. May 29, 2020.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2020-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 16 joules per kilogram, CIN -64, lifted condensation level 1158 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2020-05-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -50 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 24 knots.1939Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
16 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-64 J/kg
Surface CAPE
536 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1158 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-50 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
-10 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
-0.0
Supercell composite
-0.6
0-3 km lapse rate
6.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:50 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
22:40 UTCTORNADOAtwaterMacoupin, ILCORRECTS PREVIOUS TORNADO REPORT FROM ATWATER. TIME ESTIMATED FROM RADAR.TORNADO OBSERVED MOVING EAST-NORTHEAST AND THEN DISSIPATED.
22:45 UTCTORNADOWaggonerMontgomery, ILPHOTO OF TORNADO ON SOCIAL MEDIA 10 MILES NORTH OF LITCHFIELD, ILLINOIS ALONG I-55 AT APPROXIMATELY 5:45PM.
22:46 UTCTORNADO3 Se AtwaterMontgomery, ILTORNADO CAUGHT ON VIDEO AND SHARED BY EMERGENCY MANAGER. TORNADO DISSIPATED AROUND THE 65MM ON I-55 AT THE SOUTHBOUND REST AREA.
22:50 UTCTORNADOAtwaterMacoupin, ILTORNADO OBSERVED MOVING EAST-NORTHEAST AND THEN DISSIPATED.
22:57 UTCTSTM WND DMG2 Ese AtwaterMontgomery, ILIMAGES FROM RESIDENT SHOW BRANCH APPROXIMATELY SIX INCHES IN DIAMETER SPLIT OFF FROM MAPLE TREE. NEARBY PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT WAS ALSO BLOWN OVER.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2020 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 28, 2020

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 284:10 PM CDTUnratedPeoria, IL1.725
May 286:56 PM CDTEF0Osage, OK0.150$20,000
May 287:25 PM CDTUnratedMoultrie, IL0.420
May 287:34 PM CDTUnratedMoultrie, IL0.320

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.