Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2021
Unrated tornado, Barrow, Illinois, June 26, 2021
This Unrated tornado ran 0.1 miles across Greene County on June 26, 2021, touching down at 1:26 PM CDT and reaching 25 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- June 26, 2021
- Touchdown
- 1:26 PM CDT (18:26 UTC)
- Lifted
- 1:28 PM CDT (18:28 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Greene County
- Touchdown point
- 39.512, -90.396
- Lift-off point
- 39.513, -90.393
- Record number
- 2106261226-01
The damage survey
1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry.
- Sheriff's deputy reported a tornado in a field to the northwest of Roodhouse, IL moving toward Manchester, IL.
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
A composite outflow boundary extending from the Kansas City area towards southeast Missouri was a focus for new development from the evening hours of June 25th through June 26th. There were numerous reports of damaging winds and flash flooding with this event, as well as a tornado.
A brief, narrow tornado touched down in a field to the northwest of Roodhouse, IL on Saturday afternoon. A sheriff`s deputy reported that the tornado briefly touched down before lifting as the storm moved toward Manchester, IL. No damage was noted. The tornado was rated EFU with a path length of approximately 0.15 miles and a path width of 25 yards.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
4 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:22 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:37 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:29 UTC | 08:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | LSX |
| 08:29 UTC | 17:06 UTC | Flood Warning | LSX |
| 18:22 UTC | 18:37 UTC | Tornado Warning | LSX |
| 19:09 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LSX |
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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:21 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
6.4 hours before the tornado, 169 km from the path. June 26, 2021.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 683 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -28 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 672 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 684 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 37 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 263 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 229 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.5
- Supercell composite
- 3.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z
5.6 hours after it, 169 km from the path. June 27, 2021.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 33 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -122 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 948 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1160 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 97 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 134 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.6 K/km
The radar
The St Louis radar (KLSX), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:28 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) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18:28 UTC | TORNADO | Barrow | Greene, IL | SHERIFFS DEPUTY REPORTED A TORNADO IN A FIELD TO THE NORTHWEST OF ROODHOUSE, IL MOVING TOWARD MANCHESTER, IL. NO DAMAGE WAS REPORTED. |
| 19:04 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 3 Nne Hamburg | Calhoun, IL | COUNTY DISPATCH REPORTS TREES DOWN ON A NUMBER ROADS ACROSS THE NORTHERN PORTION OF THE COUNTY. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2021 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 26, 2021
11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 26 | 1:29 PM CDT | EF0 | Lake, IN | 3.3 | 250 | |||
| June 26 | 2:06 PM CDT | EF0 | Will, IL | 4.1 | 100 | |||
| June 26 | 3:31 PM EDT | EF0 | Ottawa, MI | 2.4 | 25 | $100,000 | ||
| June 26 | 3:33 PM EDT | EF1 | Mecosta, MI | 2.9 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| June 26 | 4:23 PM EDT | EF0 | Kent, MI | 0.6 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| June 26 | 4:31 PM EDT | EF0 | Ionia, MI | 1.1 | 25 | $75,000 | ||
| June 26 | 3:35 PM CDT | EF0 | Logan, IL | 0.2 | 75 | |||
| June 26 | 4:40 PM EDT | EF1 | Ionia, MI | 5.0 | 50 | $250,000 | ||
| June 26 | 5:09 PM EDT | EF0 | Clare, MI | 3.7 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| June 26 | 4:36 PM CDT | EF0 | Livingston, IL | 0.7 | 75 | |||
| June 26 | 5:49 PM EDT | EF2 | Huron, MI | 6.8 | 400 | 6 | $1.9 million |
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.