Unrated tornado, Ipava to Little America, Illinois, April 4, 2023

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

April 4, 2023

Touchdown

7:29 PM CDT (00:29 UTC)

Lifted

7:30 PM CDT (00:30 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Fulton County

Touchdown point

40.405, -90.078

Lift-off point

40.407, -90.075

Record number

2304041829-01

133 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 160 mph.

• Most of roof gone. Barn or machine shed appears destroyed.
• All walls destroyed from a home. Only the basement level remains
• One building with roof damage, another lost one side wall
• Several trees broken high up

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

As a warm front lifted northward, a highly unstable and sheared environment developed across west-central Illinois during the afternoon and evening of April 4th. Despite the favorable parameters, thunderstorm activity was slow to initiate due to the lack of a forcing mechanism and the presence of low-level capping. As a subtle short-wave approached from the west and weakened the cap, a large supercell thunderstorm formed over southern McDonough County then tracked east-northeast across Fulton County. This storm produced a total of 4 tornadoes in Fulton County...including an EF-3 tornado that tracked across the northwest side of Lewistown. Very large hail was reported as well...with the largest stone measuring 4 inches in diameter in the town of Bernadotte.

A tornado touched down about 1 mile south of Ipava at 7:11 PM CDT. It tracked east-northeastward causing EF-1 level damage near the intersection of East Square Road and North Summum Road where several farm buildings and a home sustained damage. The tornado then curved northeastward and crossed the Spoon River Bottoms. Damage began increasing about 1.5 miles west of Lewistown near County Highway 14 where several houses and outbuildings were damaged along North Milton Road. The tornado increased in intensity, producing EF-3 damage just northwest of Lewistown where it crumpled a metal high tension transmission tower. It crossed State Highway 97 just northwest of the intersection with State Highway 100 and damaged numerous homes and farm buildings along State Highway 100 between North Grain Bin Highway and East Epworth Spring Road. The tornado blew down several power poles from this point northeastward to the southwest edge of Bryant. Much of the tornado damage within the town of Bryant was west of State Highway 100 between Ash Street and Elm Street...with damage east of State Highway 100 being caused by rear-flank downdraft winds of 70 to 100 mph. EF-3 tornado damage was observed about 1 mile southwest of Bryant near the intersection of State Highway 100 and North Wright Road where several houses were demolished. EF-3 damage was also noted 1 mile northeast of Bryant near the west end of East Hooty Road. Four injuries occurred in the Bryant area. The tornado continued northeastward, damaging trees and power lines west of Saint David and a home along West Hickory Street southwest of Canton. It dissipated about 2 miles southwest of Canton at 7:38 PM CDT.

A storm chaser reported a brief tornado touchdown southeast of the main Lewistown tornado at 7:29 PM CDT. The tornado quickly dissipated and no damage was observed.

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

35 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:54 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:40 UTC and running to 02:27 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 Lincoln radar (KILX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:29 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 2023 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.