EF2 tornado, Omega Forbes Arpt to Oskaloosa, Illinois, May 26, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 26, 2024

Touchdown

7:29 PM CDT (00:29 UTC)

Lifted

7:43 PM CDT (00:43 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

8.3 miles (13.3 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10 million

Counties

Marion and Clay counties

Touchdown point

38.708, -88.781

Lift-off point

38.703, -88.632

Record number

2405261829-01

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

• Car port tossed across a field
• 9 power poles down / snapped
• Trees snapped/twisted with downed power line
• Leaning pole and large branches down

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

During the afternoon and early evening of May 26, 2024, ten tornadoes touched down in the St. Louis metropolitan area and southwest Illinois from a mix of supercells and QLCS modes. This occurred alongside numerous reports of large hail of up to 2.5 inches in diameter and damaging winds of up to 81 mph. Thankfully, there were no reported injuries or fatalities with these thunderstorms.

Supercell thunderstorms developed along an outflow boundary from central Missouri into south-central Illinois along the I-70 corridor during the late afternoon and evening of May 26th. The storms eventually congealed into a line and swept eastward, causing significant wind damage across the southern portions of Clay, Richland, and Lawrence counties. Damage surveys revealed two tornadoes touched down...an EF-2 in Clay County northwest of Xenia and an EF-1 in Lawrence County south of Sumner.

A brief, weak tornado touched down just west of Forbes Lake, uprooting and snapping several trees before dissipating just east of the Oak Ridge Trailhead. Overall, the tornado was rated EF1 with a path length of 1.12 miles and a max path width of 325 yards. No deaths or injuries were reported.

A tornado touched down just northwest of Omega and tracked eastward south of Forbes Lake primarily uprooting and snapping trees along its path and causing minor roof damage to a farm outbuilding on Seavers Road. The tornado then crossed into Clay County (WFO ILX) and strengthened to EF2 intensity. The tornado was rated EF1 in Marion County with a path length of 4.66 miles and a max path width of 500 yards. Overall, the tornado was rated EF2 with a path length of 8.28 miles and a max path width of 500 yards. No deaths or injuries were reported.

This tornado originally touched down in Marion County in the National Weather Service Saint Louis County Warning Area (CWA), then crossed into southwestern Clay County just north of the intersection of Beard Road and Songer Township Lane at 7:35 PM CDT. It knocked down several trees and power lines before tracking northeastward and doing its greatest damage at a farm on the north end of Penguin Drive where several large metal buildings were demolished. The tornado then lifted just east of Xenia-Iola Road between Songer Township Lane and Hickory Hill Lane at 7:43 PM CDT.

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

29 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:00 UTC, 29 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:05 UTC and running to 00:50 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:20 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), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:28 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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 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.