EF3 Robinson tornado, Illinois and Indiana, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

March 31, 2023

Touchdown

8:58 PM CDT (01:58 UTC)

Lifted

9:33 PM CDT (02:33 UTC)

On the ground

35 minutes

Path length

40.9 miles (65.8 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

6

Injuries

16

Property damage

$18 million

Counties

Jasper, Crawford and Sullivan counties

Touchdown point

38.902, -88.060

Lift-off point

39.097, -87.344

Record number

2303311958-01

177 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 165 mph.

• House gone: not well anchored.
• Utility pole snapped off at the top.
• Pic from the road looking south
• Older 2-story home collapsed. House not well anchored.

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

Two rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms spawned 13 tornadoes across central Illinois during the afternoon and evening of March 31st...including an EF-3 tornado that killed 3 people in Robinson in Crawford County. The first round of convection developed along a warm front lifting northeastward through the area during the afternoon. These storms were primarily very large hail-producers, with up to baseball-sized (2.75 diameter) hail being reported in the town of Banner in Fulton County. Once the warm front lifted into northern Illinois, a modestly unstable but highly sheared environment was in place during the late afternoon and evening...with CAPE values of 1500-2500J/kg and 0-6km bulk shear in excess of 70kt. As a trailing cold front approached from the west, additional supercell thunderstorms developed that produced tornadoes, very large hail, and damaging wind gusts. The cells eventually congealed into a broken line as they pushed eastward to the I-57 corridor by mid-evening. Meanwhile, a discrete supercell ahead of the line tracked south of I-70, dropping the EF-3 tornado in Crawford County.

A strong, occluding storm system over the Upper Midwest produced a deep column of strong southwesterly winds over the Midwest on the afternoon and evening of the 31st.|This pattern generated an inordinate amount of vertical wind shear. The overall southwesterly flow also brought rather mild and somewhat humid air into the region, which was adequately unstable given noticeably colder air aloft, especially over the southwestern quadrant of Indiana.||Resulting thunderstorms were able to mix down the stronger winds to the surface as damaging straight line gusts, while a rather low freezing level promoted isolated large hail. Ten tornadoes occurred across the region: 5 from a rotating supercell thunderstorm that tracked roughly parallel to and about 20 miles south of Interstate 70, and 5 others spawned from a squall line's northern book-end vortex that impacted north-central central Indiana. The supercell's first two tornadoes (both EF3) caused a combined 5 fatalities...before the supercell spawned two more strong tornadoes (EF2/EF3), with the cell's final EF3 inflicting major damage on a warehouse in Whiteland (Johnson Co.). The (northern) squall line's first tornado was an EF2 that impacted mostly rural areas...while the squall line's four following tornadoes were all weak (EF0/EF1), with the final three spawned over Howard County, concluding with a longer tracking EF1 that injured one person.

This tornado crossed into western Crawford County from Jasper County at 9:03pm CDT. The tornado tracked northeastward, doing minor structural damage to a machine shed along County Highway 1 near Pierceburg. Numerous wooden power poles were snapped and heavy damage to trees was noted with tops sheared off about 30 feet above ground. Structural damage to homes of the EF1-EF2 variety occurred as the tornado moved across County Highway 15 where two single family homes sustained major roof damage. A mobile home was torn in half with its debris strewn about 20 yards in opposite directions. Trees, while sparse in this area, were sheared about 20-30 feet above the ground. Further east along County Highway 15, structural damage occurred to a large machine shed where a stationary semi-trailer blew into its west-facing wall causing the entire structure to fail. The debris from the large machine shed then blew into an old, poorly anchored single-family residence and caused exterior walls to slide off its foundation. Over the next 3 miles along the path of the tornado just before it reached the south side of Robinson, considerable tree damage was observed.||As the tornado tracked into the south side of Robinson, it narrowly missed a major oil refinery. The tornado destroyed two manufactured homes resulting in two fatalities as it crossed County Highway 9 near the interchange of East 900th Avenue and North 1200th Street. Damage to structures, trees, and wooden power poles was determined to be EF1-EF2.||Heavy structural damage (EF3) and an additional fatality were noted on the east side of Robinson near the interchange of State Highway 1 and East 1050th Avenue where a two-story masonry building experienced failure to its top story walls. The adjacent properties also experienced heavy damage where the exterior walls of two |single-family homes collapsed. Damage to trees and utility poles in this area was extensive due to the amount of debris strewn toward the northeast. ||The tornado then moved over Robinson Municipal Airport, destroying airport hangers and a small outbuilding. The progressive collapse of the rigid frames of the metal building systems, which included steel beams measuring greater than 18 inches in diameter, caused the survey team to estimate EF3 damage at this point.||A continuous track of EF1 damage then extended northeastward across County Highway 5 where multiple single-family homes exhibited large sections of their roof structures removed. In addition, multiple large machine sheds experienced a collapse of their wall structures. ||The survey team concluded that the storm likely maintained its intensity as it tracked northeastward toward the Wabash River, noting about a quarter-mile wide swath of heavy tree damage to distant tree lines as it continued toward the river. The tornado then crossed the Wabash River into the National Weather Service Indianapolis County Warning Area (CWA) in western Sullivan County at 9:21pm CDT.

This was the rotating supercell's first tornado, having traversed through Illinois for nearly 28 miles, producing EF3 damage before entering Indiana. The tornado crossed the Wabash River, entering Sullivan County 1.8 miles south of Merom. Near Merom, the tornado severely damaged 3 homes and destroyed a modular home which was thrown at least 200 yards to destruction. Two occupants of this home were killed. Also, a large trailer and several cars were thrown tens of yards from their resting location. The violent winds sheared off trees approximately 20 to 30 feet above ground.||The tornado continued across southern portions of the City of Sullivan. Dozens of homes and structures were severely damaged or destroyed, indicating the strongest winds of the tornado's entire 41-mile track that peaked near 165 mph. The tornado continued to locations immediately south-southeast, and then southeast of Sullivan, destroying at least 3 additional homes, including a modular home which was thrown at least 150 yards. One occupant of this home was killed, while the other was injured. Many trees were again sheared 20 to 30 feet off the ground. Continuing to the east-northeast, the circulation began to weaken as it continued into a wooded area, damaging numerous trees before lifting off the ground 3.3 miles east of Sullivan. Much damage in the area reached EF2-intensity (111-135 mph winds), with several locations where winds reached the EF3-intensity (136-165 mph winds).

The deaths

6 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.

18 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:40 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:01 UTC and running to 03:28 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:04 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:57 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.