EF1 tornado, West Jersey, Illinois, August 15, 2024

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

August 15, 2024

Touchdown

11:06 PM CDT (04:06 UTC)

Lifted

11:12 PM CDT (04:12 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.2 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Stark County

Touchdown point

41.040, -89.980

Lift-off point

41.050, -89.920

Record number

2408152206-01

5 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 90 mph.

• Reported by John Heaton whose parents live a half mile north of the tornado touchdown area.
• Tree damage observed near Walnut Creek by John Heaton.
• Tree damage as tornado approached State Route 78.

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

A cold front interacting with a highly unstable airmass triggered a line of severe thunderstorms across west-central Illinois during the evening of August 15th. The storms swept across Knox County, northern Peoria County, and Stark County...producing scattered wind damage and hail as large as quarters. One cell spawned a brief EF-1 tornado northwest of West Jersey in Stark County. The tornado caused mainly tree damage before quickly dissipating.

A tornado touched down along Walnut Creek near the Knox County-Stark County line about 3 miles northwest of West Jersey at 11:06pm CDT. It moved east-northeastward through farm fields before crossing over Walnut Creek again and snapping trees as it progressed across 250 East Road. The tornado then crossed State Route 78 and dissipated in a field at 11:12pm CDT.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 02:10 UTC and running to 06:05 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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 Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:06 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 2024 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

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.