EF1 tornado, Woodhaven Lakes to The Burg, 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

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

Lifted

7:21 PM CDT (00:21 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

7.8 miles (12.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lee County

Touchdown point

41.638, -89.229

Lift-off point

41.711, -89.114

Record number

2303311813-01

58 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• large portion of roof removed from bank, portion of top floor wall damaged.
• location approximate, large evergreen tree uprooted near Steward. Via photo shared to social media.
• Approximately 120 ft section of roof of outbuilding/elevator annex blown off to the east. Also another small section of a nearby outbuilding roof panel blown to the east.
• Mobile home roof peeled off, and at least one more with minor roof peeling. Also parts of a couple large trees downed.

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.

The tornado touched down in the Woodhaven Lakes campground south of Amboy. There, multiple campers were damaged by the tornado including two that were rolled. Farther along its northeastward track, two trees had fallen onto a home destroying it. The tornado appeared to have reached its maximum intensity with wind speeds estimated at 115 mph shortly after crossing US Hwy 52 where it destroyed a large garage and snapped several trees at their trunks. Several dozen other large trees were snapped and many branches sheared off along its path. Toward the end of its lifespan, the tornado also did minor damage to an outbuilding before lifting near Butler Hill Rd north of West Brooklyn.

This tornado developed just south of the town center of Sublette snapping multiple utility poles as it crossed US Rt. 52. The tornado strengthened as it progressed into the town of West Brooklyn. There, it downed several large trees, folded an approximately 120-foot tall tower, and tore the roof off of a bank in downtown West Brooklyn. A wooden beam from the roof of the bank impaled a nearby garage roof to the north-northeast of the bank. The tornado then lifted north of Shaw Rd just west of Carnahan Rd just over 2 miles northeast of West Brooklyn.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:54 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 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 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 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 Chicago radar (KLOT), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:11 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.