EF0 tornado, Spaulding to Park Ridge, Illinois, July 12, 2023

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

July 12, 2023

Touchdown

6:54 PM CDT (23:54 UTC)

Lifted

7:00 PM CDT (00:00 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.4 miles (5.5 km)

Path width

225 yards (206 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

DuPage and Cook counties

Touchdown point

41.982, -88.000

Lift-off point

41.997, -87.937

Record number

2307121754-01

106 damage points were recorded along this path by 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.

• Outer edge of leaf debris, twigs
• Tall grass and reeds blown down in different directions
• Concentrated area of tree damage
• Stop sign leaning and some minor tree damage just south of it

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

During the evening of July 12, scattered thunderstorms dropped 13 tornadoes across far northeast Illinois, primarily within the west of northwest suburbs of Chicago. Of these 13 tornadoes, three were determined to be EF-1 with the remaining 10 being EF-0.

This tornado started in a farm field east of Kendall Road and continued eastward through Elgin. Damage along the path of the tornado consisted of snapped trees and tree limbs, especially between Bowes Bend Drive and Randall Road. Damage to roofs, siding, and walls of homes, a garage, and a farm building was also noted near Bowes Bend Drive and Longcommon Parkway. The roof of a church was also damaged near Nesler Road. The storm crossed into Cook County on the southwest side of Bluff Spring Fen. The tornado appeared to lift near the intersection of Gifford Road and Lake Street.

A brief EF-0 tornado began near the intersection of Yorkshire Dr. and Phoenix Lake Ave. in Streamwood and tracked east for about half a mile before lifting as it crossed Barrington Rd. This tornado stripped siding off of two walls at the Portillo's at Ramblewood Dr. and Barrington Rd. while also causing some tree damage and blowing around light debris along its track. Tree damage also continued east of Barrington Rd. into Hanover Park, though witness accounts and the broadening nature of a predominantly southwest to northeast oriented damage field suggest that this damage was caused by strong southwesterly straight-line winds of up to 75 mph that descended to ground level right as the tornado was lifting.

A brief, weak EF-0 tornado touched down near Jane Addams Junior High School in Schaumburg and tracked east for a little over a mile before lifting as it approached Salem Dr. This tornado produced sporadic and mostly minor tree damage along its track.

This EF-0 touched down on the far northeast side of Itasca near the intersection of Prospect Ave and Thorndale Ave. It then tracked east-northeastward through a large industrial park in Wood Dale, Bensenville, and Elk Grove Village, where it caused minor damage to the roofs and fascia of a few warehouses and sporadic tree damage, which was most concentrated and severe near the intersection of Lively Blvd. and Kirk St. Eyewitness reports suggest that the tornado may have lifted intermittently along its track before it lifted for good east of Elmhurst Rd. over the far northwest side of O���Hare Airport.

After the first tornado in the O'Hare area lifted, a second EF-0 tornado touched down within the confines of O'Hare Airport just south of the I-90 overpass over Touhy Ave. The tornado initially caused minor roofing and fascia damage to buildings and warehouses on the far north side of the airport. Minor tree damage also occurred in this area, and a parked car was impaled by debris that was thrown by the tornado. The tornado then tracked east across I-90 and into Rosemont, where it blew over a light pole and ticket booths in the Allstate Arena parking lot and caused damage to trees and signs along Mannheim Rd. Video footage taken in Rosemont showed the tornado (which did not necessarily have a fully condensed cloud-to-ground funnel at all times) track into a residential area on the southeast side of Des Plaines, where it produced a concentrated area of tree damage, caused minor roofing and fascia damage to some houses, and caused a few power poles to lean. The tornado may have lost contact with the ground as it crossed the Des Plaines River, but it eventually touched down again in Park Ridge, where it produced tree damage in a neighborhood east of Maine South High School before lifting for good.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:31 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:53 UTC and running to 01:21 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 20:00 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 Chicago radar (KLOT), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:56 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

23 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.