EF1 tornado, Sicily to Radford, Illinois, June 29, 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

June 29, 2023

Touchdown

12:38 PM CDT (17:38 UTC)

Lifted

12:47 PM CDT (17:47 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

10.4 miles (16.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Christian County

Touchdown point

39.599, -89.297

Lift-off point

39.569, -89.107

Record number

2306291138-01

74 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Start of tornado, per satellite data
• South end of line of poles.
• Numerous large tree branches shredded about a 1/4 mile north of our location.
• Corn down just south of us off road

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

A cluster of thunderstorms that initiated during the night of June 28th across the Central Plains entered west-central Illinois by the late morning of June 29th. Aided by an increasingly unstable airmass characterized by CAPE values of 3000-4000J/kg and a 30-40kt mid-level jet streak, the storms became linear in nature and began racing east-southeastward across central Illinois. Widespread wind gusts of 60-80mph were observed along the line, with localized corridors of even higher gusts. The highest measured gust of 101 mph came from a personal weather station near Taylorville that took a direct hit from a tornado. A total of seven tornadoes were embedded within the line of storms, including an EF-2 tornado near Curran in Sangamon County. The high winds caused extensive tree and power line damage, leading to power loss for over 200,000 customers. Some people in the Springfield area were without power for nearly a week before all lines were restored. The winds impacted all of central and southeast Illinois, but were most concentrated between the I-74 and I-70 corridors. Once the line of storms dropped into the Ohio River Valley, additional severe cells fired along the trailing outflow boundary south of I-70 during the late afternoon. These storms produced hail as large as 2 inches in diameter across parts of Clay, Richland, and Lawrence counties.

Sentinel-2 satellite imagery showed that a tornado touched down 6.2 miles northwest of Palmer about a half mile north of the intersection of North 200 East Road and East 1100 North Road at 12:27 PM CDT. The tornado tracked east-southeastward through farm fields before dissipating before reaching North 300 East Road at 12:28 PM CDT. Damage appeared limited to crops, thus no intensity could be assigned.

A tornado touched down east of Sangchris Lake State Park near the intersection of North 600 East Road and East 1800 North Road at 12:29 PM CDT. It tracked eastward, damaging numerous trees and demolishing a metal farm building near the intersection of North 800 East Road and East 1800 North Road. The tornado dissipated about 1 mile southwest of Sharpsburg at 12:32 PM CDT.

Sentinel-2 satellite analysis showed a tornado touched down in a farm field 1.2 miles south-southwest of Mount Auburn just northeast of the intersection of North 1400 East Road and East 2700 North Road at 12:33 PM CDT. The tornado tracked southeastward, damaging numerous trees along North 1500 East Road just north of its intersection with East 2700 North Road. A car door was impaled by a piece of wooden debris as well. The tornado dissipated about 1 mile south-southeast of Mount Auburn at 12:34 PM CDT.

A tornado touched down near the intersection of North 1250 East Road and East 1700 North Road north of Taylorville at 12:38 PM CDT. It tracked southeastward, damaging several trees and one home before dissipating about 4 miles northwest of Assumption at 12:47 PM CDT.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:19 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 15:34 UTC and running to 18:40 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 17:18 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.

Taylorville (TAZ), 12 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:38 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

7 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.