EF1 tornado, Proctor to Gibson City, Illinois, January 3, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

January 3, 2023

Touchdown

5:56 PM CST (23:56 UTC)

Lifted

6:02 PM CST (00:02 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.7 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Ford County

Touchdown point

40.422, -88.367

Lift-off point

40.449, -88.324

Record number

2301031756-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Shingle damage with broken windows and wood post through roof.
• Estimated starting point of tornado. Damage indicators do not extend back to Route 47.

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

On the afternoon of January 3, a cluster of thunderstorms brought small hail, one inch in diameter or less, across parts of the Chicago metropolitan area, primarily the north and northwest suburbs. Late in the afternoon into the early evening, a second cluster of storms moving through central Illinois produced embedded supercells, one of which dropped an EF-1 tornado southeast of Gibson City.

A tornado occurred southeast of Gibson City on the evening of January 3rd. An NWS storm survey found that the tornado touched down just south of E 200N Rd on the south side of town between N 450E Rd and N 600E Rd at approximately 5:56 PM CST. Trekking northeastward near 30 mph, the tornado carved a path spanning 2.9 miles with a maximum width of 25 yards before lifting at 6:02 PM CST north of E 300N Rd just east of N 700E Rd. Along its path, the tornado damaged the roofs of two homes, one of which was also noted to have broken windows and a wooden post penetrating the roof. Additionally, there was significant damage to a lean-to style outbuilding as well as uprooted trees and downed power lines. The tornado was assigned an EF-1 rating with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:46 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:35 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), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:53 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

25 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.