Unrated tornado, Mannon to Shale City, Illinois, August 20, 2022

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.

Rating

Unrated

Date

August 20, 2022

Touchdown

1:55 PM CDT (18:55 UTC)

Lifted

2:05 PM CDT (19:05 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.6 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mercer County

Touchdown point

41.210, -90.740

Lift-off point

41.230, -90.690

Record number

2208201255-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

• Leaf litter and very small branches were noted at this location. Only 'damage' found.

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

The cold core low that moved into the area on August 19th lingered into the 20th. Sufficient instability and shear were present for the formation of many mini supercells that led to many funnel cloud reports with a couple of brief tornado touch downs.

A chaser reported that a funnel cloud lasted 2 minutes at this location and eventually touched down briefly. There is photo and eyewitness evidence of the brief ground based rotation. The tornado is rated an EF-U.

Eyewitness reports along with video and photographic evidence from storm chasers support an intermittent tornado path of nearly 3 miles. There are also reports of minor crop damage associated with tornado. Times were based on detailed information from chasers. With no observable damage to assess, this tornado is rated an EF-U.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:35 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:32 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 Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 45 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:57 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 2022 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.