EF1 tornado, Irene to Elkhorn, Illinois, March 31, 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

March 31, 2023

Touchdown

7:44 PM CDT (00:44 UTC)

Lifted

8:01 PM CDT (01:01 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

17.3 miles (27.9 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

Counties

Boone and Walworth counties

Touchdown point

42.349, -88.903

Lift-off point

42.530, -88.669

Record number

2303311844-01

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

• from photo shared on social media, location approximate.
• Tree branches downed. End point.
• Playground set rolled about 20 feet
• Storage facility that lost most of the roofing. Debris all lofted to north.

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

During the afternoon and evening of the 31st, a wave of severe thunderstorms produced numerous tornadoes, severe hail, extensive wind damage, and localized flooding across northern and northeastern Illinois. A total of 37 tornadoes were confirmed across the state. The NWS Chicago office tied a record for the most tornadoes to occur in a single calendar day within the office's county warning area with 22, 17 of which occurred in Illinois. One EF-2 tornado occurred in south-central Lee County and two others in northwest Indiana. Some of the more notable damage includes multiple semi trucks blown over, a garage that had been completely destroyed southeast of Amboy, and the partial roof collapse of the Apollo Theatre in Belvidere which unfortunately resulted in one fatality and 40 injuries.

A warm front was draped across southern Wisconsin on the evening of March 31st which had numerous thunderstorms develop along it. Most of the stronger storms that interacted with the warm front ended up producing some brief EF-0 to EF-1 tornadic damage. There were a few incidents that looked to be from straight line winds along the southeast side of the rotations, but most of the damage appeared to be lofted and from tornadoes.

This tornado crossed into Boone County south of Cherry Valley from Winnebago County. The tornado, which originated in Ogle County, traversed northeastward doing minor damage to farms. As it moved through the town of Belvidere, the storm produced multiple instances of damage to businesses, homes, and trees. Included in this is the partial roof collapse of the Apollo Theatre downtown which resulted in one fatality and 40 injuries. From there, the tornado would travel another 7 miles doing additional damage to trees before lifting near Orth Rd just west of the Boone-McHenry county line.

This tornado touched down southwest of the village of Caledonia moving through mostly farmland along its northeastward track. The storm destroyed numerous outbuildings, heavily damaged a silo, and caused a grain bin to collapse. In the Candlewick Lake neighborhood southeast of Caledonia, a few homes sustained roof and siding damage. Several trees were also damaged. The tornado then crossed into the village of Sharon in southwestern Walworth County, Wisconsin. The storm would go on for nearly another four miles mostly doing damage to barns and trees before lifting near Town Hall Rd and Chilson Rd.

Tail end of the tornado that began in northern Illinois and tracked just to the southeast to northeast of Sharon. A few barns had roofing damage to them.

Tornado started near the Illinois state line and tracked northward toward Delavan Lake. A number of farm outbuildings had roofing panels lofted off of them and a subdivision south of Delavan Lake had a number of large trees toppled. Tornado appeared to end north of Lake Lawn Resort, which had some tree damage to it.

Tornado damage path which damaged a barn and shed and also caused 16 power lines to be snapped.

Several trees toppled and uprooted. Minor fascia damage. Sheet metal roof damage.

Tornado damage started at the Geneva National Golf Club and went due north along Prairie Rd and County Rd H. The most substantial damage was to a storage facility which had a high volume of roofing material lofted about a mile north of the facility.

The deaths

1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

21 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:23 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:06 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:38 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:54 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 Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:44 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

126 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 127 of them

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.