EF1 tornado, Livingston to Ferrell, Illinois, April 2, 2025

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

April 2, 2025

Touchdown

7:02 PM CDT (00:02 UTC)

Lifted

7:10 PM CDT (00:10 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Clark and Edgar counties

Touchdown point

39.419, -87.640

Lift-off point

39.507, -87.541

Record number

2504021802-01

133 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 112 mph.

• First picture is looking west at the eastern facing portion of the house. East side of roof completely ripped off and thrown east into neighbors house
• Entire detached garage destroyed with intact walls thrown over shed and into neighbors yard to the ENE. Shed next to it looks untouched. Potential for multiple mesovortices causing this.
• Poorly built old pole barn collapsed
• Two structures heavily damaged. Support beams looked rotted. Brick building in back seems to not be anchored to foundation. Roof not well secured to walls. Therefore keeping tornado rating at EF1.

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

An area of low pressure tracked from southeastern Nebraska during the morning of April 2nd to western Wisconsin by evening, triggering two rounds of convection across central Illinois.||Round 1 occurred during the morning when a line of thunderstorms along the trailing cold front pushed into the Illinois River Valley. These storms were generally sub-severe, but one cell produced a downburst with estimated winds in excess of 70 mph across parts of Logan County, downing a few trees, tearing the roof off a business, and flipping 3 semis in and near Lincoln.||Round 2 materialized by early afternoon as storms re-developed along an outflow boundary from the morning convection along the I-55 corridor. These storms tapped into a moderately unstable and highly sheared environment and quickly became severe. Six tornadoes touched down...including a long-track EF-2 tornado that remained on the ground for nearly 45 miles and impacted parts of Cumberland, Clark, and Edgar counties before crossing into Vigo County, Indiana. Numerous reports of wind damage and large hail were received as the storms congealed into a line and pushed eastward across I-57 by early evening. The largest reported hail stones were the size of eggs (2 in diameter) in Springfield in Sangamon County and just northwest of Latham in southern Logan County.

A tornado touched down in a field about 3 miles south of Marshall just south of I-70 at 7:02 PM CDT. The tornado crossed I-70 where it blew over 2 semi trucks, then continued northeastward and damaged 8 large buildings and several trees at a hog farm along East 1950th Road. It then snapped several trees and tree branches and caused minor damage to outbuildings before crossing into Edgar County near the intersection of North Fern Lake Road and East 2250th Road at 7:08 PM CDT.

This tornado crossed from Clark County into Edgar County just west of Flemington Creek at 7:02 PM CDT. It then continued northeastward, snapping trees and tree branches and doing minor damage to outbuildings before crossing into the National Weather Service Indianapolis County Warning Area in Vigo County, Indiana about 1 mile north of Sandford at 7:14 PM CDT.

This tornado crossed from Clark County into Edgar County near the intersection of North Fern Lake Road and East 2250th Road at 7:08 PM CDT where it tore off the front section of an outbuilding. It then continued northeastward damaging trees and power lines before dissipating in an open field northeast of North 2250th Street and East 175th Road at 7:10 PM CDT.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:45 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:20 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:18 UTC and running to 01:40 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 19:57 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.

Terre Haute (HUF), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:04 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 2025 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

87 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 88 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.