EF0 tornado, Westfield Corners to New Milford, Illinois, July 15, 2024

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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. 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

EF0

Date

July 15, 2024

Touchdown

8:01 PM CDT (01:01 UTC)

Lifted

8:02 PM CDT (01:02 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Winnebago County

Touchdown point

42.169, -89.092

Lift-off point

42.169, -89.089

Record number

2407151901-01

80 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• In addition to a few large tree branches down, corn bent over to the east southeast. Possibly convergent, but not clear.
• Lots of pine trees damaged. Most had been cleared from the road, leaving leaf litter
• Several tree limbs downed on Meridian Rd. between Edwardsville Rd. and Kelley Rd.
• Some siding panels ripped off

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

A derecho moved across northern Illinois during the evening of July 15th producing widespread wind damage and 30 tornadoes in northeast Illinois. One of these tornadoes crossed into northwest Indiana. At the height of the storms, 430,000 customers lost power with some power not restored for four days, on July 19th.

A tornado with estimated peak winds of 75 mph touched down just north of the entrance to a forest preserve off Montague Road. The tornado initially moved southeast and then turned northeast moving along Montague Road. Damage to trees, power lines and crops occurred along the path of this tornado. A car was reported to have been pushed off Montague Road just south of Highlands Drive. The tornado ended just southeast of Highlands Drive.

A brief tornado with estimated peak winds of 80 mph touched down southeast of the intersection of Bend Road and Baxter Road, moved northeast crossing Baxter Road and ended just northeast of Baxter Road. Photos and videos of a funnel cloud looking south southwest from the east side of Rockford and looking west from near Interstate 39 and Baxter Road lined up with drone footage of tree damage along the path of this brief tornado. Tree limbs were blown down in various directions and onto power lines.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:54 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:20 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:53 UTC and running to 03:20 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:47 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.

Rockford (RFD), 3 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Milwaukee radar (KMKX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:03 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

61 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 62 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.