Unrated tornado, Henry to Held, Illinois, July 14, 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 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

July 14, 2024

Touchdown

11:48 PM CDT (04:48 UTC)

Lifted

11:49 PM CDT (04:49 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.4 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

41.050, -89.180

Lift-off point

41.040, -89.170

Record number

2407142248-01

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

• Trunks and limbs. Snapped 2/3 the way up. Shingles ripped off. Large tree down on mobile home.
• Mostly straight line wind damage. Hardwood trees snapped 1/3 the way up AGL, but mostly facing same direction. A handful of softwood trees were uprooted but positioned cyclonically. Heavy damage to some but not all trailers, mostly via hardwood debris and straight-line wind.
• Snapped but not a healthy tree
• a row of 4 huge pine trees 18 inch diameter 60 feet tall were snapped off where ground is disturbed.

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

Thunderstorms initiated across central and northern Iowa during the afternoon of July 14th. A highly unstable and sheared environment quickly led to upscale growth into a Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) that tracked east-southeastward along the northern periphery of a prominent upper-level ridge centered over the southern Plains into the lower Mississippi River Valley. Widespread wind damage occurred within the path of the MCS during the evening of July 14th into the pre-dawn hours of July 15th...mainly north of the I-74 corridor. National Weather Service Lincoln damage survey teams found 3 tornado touchdowns along the leading edge of the storms in Marshall County, all 3 of which were rated EF-1. Additional analysis of Sentinel satellite data found two more brief tornadoes occurred in rural Marshall County. These two were rated EF-Unknown.

A tornado touched down just north of Henry at 11:40 PM CDT. The tornado tracked eastward through the Marshall Mobile Estates mobile home park, heavily damaging nearly all of the trailers in the park. The damage was mostly due to hardwood debris and straight-line winds. Several trees were also snapped and blown over before the tornado quickly dissipated along County Road 1400 North east of the park at 11:42 PM CDT.

A tornado touched down just east of the Illinois River near the north edge of Billsbach Lake at 11:42 PM CDT. The tornado tracked southeastward causing extensive tree damage in the Lake Wildwood area before dissipating southeast of the intersection of Lake Wildwood Drive and County Road 2100 East about 2 miles north-northwest of Varna at 11:45 PM CDT.

Sentinel satellite data showed that a tornado developed northeast of Varna, near county road 2350E between 800N and County Highway 14, tracking southeast across farm fields before ending at 800N. Due to a lack of damage indicators, this tornado was rated EF-Unknown.

Sentinel satellite imagery showed that another tornado developed northeast of Varna, just north of where the previous tornado ended. This second tornado crossed county road 800N near a farmstead and lifted shortly after crossing the road. An enhanced area of wind damage was seen in a corn field near the end of the track, just west of the intersection of 800N and 2500E. Due to a lack of damage indicators, this tornado was rated EF-Unknown.

A tornado touched down in a farm field north of Hickory Grove Road and west of 1475 East Road just southwest of Strawn Cemetery at 12:10 AM CDT. The tornado tracked southeastward, snapping off a row of large pine trees and damaging an outbuilding before quickly dissipating in an open field at 12:11 AM 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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:55 UTC and running to 06:23 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 00:59 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.

Lacon (C75), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 100 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:48 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

13 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.