Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2022

Unrated tornado, Macomb Muni Arpt, Illinois, July 8, 2022

This Unrated tornado ran 0.8 miles across McDonough County on July 8, 2022, touching down at 3:17 PM CDT and reaching 20 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
July 8, 2022
Touchdown
3:17 PM CDT (20:17 UTC)
Lifted
3:18 PM CDT (20:18 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.8 miles (1.3 km)
Path width
20 yards (18 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
McDonough County
Touchdown point
40.513, -90.692
Lift-off point
40.512, -90.677
Record number
2207081417-01

The damage survey

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

  • Brief tornado in an open field

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 line of scattered showers and thunderstorms moved southeastward across McDonough County. One of these storms produced a brief tornado that occurred in an open field near the Macomb Airport. There was no visible signs of damage to assign an EF-scale rating.

A trained spotter observed a brief tornado in an open field. There was no observable damage to assign an EF-Scale rating.

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.

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 19:47 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.

Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z

8.3 hours before the tornado, 124 km from the path. July 8, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 2022-07-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 156 joules per kilogram, CIN -41, lifted condensation level 714 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, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 2022-07-08The 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 28 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 28 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
156 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-41 J/kg
Surface CAPE
452 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
714 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
28 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
6 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
28 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
78 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z

3.7 hours after it, 124 km from the path. July 9, 2022.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 2022-07-09Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2 joules per kilogram, CIN -68, lifted condensation level 773 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, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 2022-07-09The 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 -95 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 27 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
2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-68 J/kg
Surface CAPE
239 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
773 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
27 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-95 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
10 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Macomb Municipal (MQB), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
18:35 UTC78.873.2130° 6 kt1014.9
18:55 UTC79.273130° 7 kt1014.6
19:15 UTC7972.5130° 6 kt1014.2
19:35 UTC79.573140° 6 kt1014.2
19:55 UTC80.673.8150° 6 kt1014.2
20:15 UTC7973.2160° 6 kt1013.9
20:35 UTC7874360° 4 kt111014.2
20:55 UTC78.874350° 14 kt181014.2
21:15 UTC75.27110° 13 kt191014.6
21:35 UTC767120° 11 kt171014.6
22:03 UTC7769.830° 9 kt1014.9

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

The radar

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:15 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
20:06 UTCFLASH FLOODGalesburgKnox, ILSIGNIFICANT STREET FLOODING IN GALESBURG.
20:09 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD2 W Macomb Municipal ArMcdonough, ILFUNNEL DOWN AT LEAST 3/4 WAY DOWN NEAR E 1100TH ST. AWAITING FURTHER DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE FROM SPOTTER OF POSSIBLE BRIEF TOUCHDOWN.
20:17 UTCTORNADO2 W Macomb Municipal ArMcdonough, ILBRIEF TORNADO OBSERVED IN AN OPEN FIELD. THERE WAS NO OBSERVABLE DAMAGE TO ASSIGN AN EF-SCALE DAMAGE.
20:35 UTCFLASH FLOOD1 Nw KnoxvilleKnox, ILSTREET FLOODING IN KNOXVILLE.
20:35 UTCHEAVY RAIN 2.151 Nw KnoxvilleKnox, IL
21:10 UTCHEAVY RAIN 1.54 Ene RushvilleSchuyler, ILRAINFALL IN ONE HOUR.
21:20 UTCHEAVY RAIN 1.91 Nw KnoxvilleKnox, ILRAINFALL IN LESS THAN ONE HOUR.

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

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2022 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

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.