EF0 tornado, Plainfield to Crest Hill, Illinois, June 20, 2021

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

June 20, 2021

Touchdown

11:08 PM CDT (04:08 UTC)

Lifted

11:14 PM CDT (04:14 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Will County

Touchdown point

41.613, -88.203

Lift-off point

41.586, -88.118

Record number

2106202208-01

232 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 142 mph.

• Considerable damage to tree limbs behind the house along Plainfield Naperville Road. no damage seen to homes.
• considerable tree damage with trees down on homes, uprooted and snapped trunks and large branches broken off and tossed into homes. Damage to homes seems primarily due to trees falling rather than direct tornado impacts.
• Trees snapped and shingle damage to homes
• Looking east along path approx 100 yd wide

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

A line of severe thunderstorms moved across northern Illinois during the late evening of June 20th and the early morning of June 21st producing wind damage and three tornadoes.

A tornado with peak winds of 85 mph touched down near the intersection of Route 59 and Route 126, just north of downtown Plainfield. Numerous large tree limbs and a few trees were blown down in a neighborhood south of Route 126 and north of Lockport Street. A tree limb was impaled into a home on Hawthorn Circle. Minor tree damage occurred in the Lake Renwick Preserve. The tornado crossed Interstate 55 with a path of sporadic tree damage in the Fieldstone neighborhood of Romeoville near Helen Drive. Tree damage occurred in the Mistwood Golf Club including tree limbs removed from the top of trees. A narrow path of concentrated tree damage occurred near Rosemarie Lane. The tornado lifted in the vicinity of Thomas Drive just east of Weber Road.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:05 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:33 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:40 UTC and running to 07:00 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 01:25 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.

Romeoville/Chi (LOT), 5 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Chicago radar (KLOT), 6 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:06 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 2021 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.