EF1 tornado, Victoria to Atkinson, Illinois, April 20, 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 20, 2025

Touchdown

8:39 PM CDT (01:39 UTC)

Lifted

8:57 PM CDT (01:57 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

16.5 miles (26.5 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Knox and Henry counties

Touchdown point

41.029, -90.121

Lift-off point

41.240, -89.990

Record number

2504201939-01

52 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN and NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Baseball wooden dugout destroyed. Many branches down.
• It appears the pole snapped due to ground not supporting a leaning pole
• this the west end of power pole damage. social media video showing 3-4 power poles blown down along 167 west of Victoria.
• looking east to tree line. snapped tree

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

A warm front lifted northward through central Illinois during the afternoon of April 20th...allowing temperatures to climb well into the 70s. As a cold front approached from the west, scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developed in the Illinois River Valley by early evening. A few of the cells began rotating, especially as they approached the warm front along and north of the I-74 corridor. Three tornadoes touched down...including 2 EF-1 tornadoes in Knox County and another EF-1 in Tazewell County. Other cells produced scattered wind damage mainly west of I-55, with an isolated damaging wind gust occurring further southeast in Clay County later in the evening as the storms advanced eastward to the Indiana border.

A line of severe thunderstorms lifted north northeastward across northwest Illinois, mainly south of Interstate 80, on the evening of April 20th. This brought numerous tornadoes to the area as well as straight-line wind damage. Fourteen tornadoes occurred in northwest Illinois. 7 of them were EF-1, 5 EF-0, and 1 EF-U. The longest track tornado of the event was on the ground for 16 miles and traveled from Victoria in Knox County through Galva before lifting west of Kewanee in Henry County.

A tornado touched down just south of Highway 167 about a mile west of Victoria at 8:39 PM CDT. The tornado snapped 4 power poles along Highway 167, then tracked northeastward and damaged numerous trees and a few outbuildings before passing through the Galva Cemetery and crossing into the National Weather Service Quad Cities County Warning Area in Henry County at 8:49 PM CDT.

A tornado touched down along Knox Road 1525 East about 1.5 miles northeast of Altona at 8:41 PM CDT. It destroyed a hog farm building and tossed it into a nearby outbuilding upon touchdown, then tracked northward into the National Weather Service Quad Cities County Warning Area in Henry County just east of the intersection of North Knox Road and East 1470th Street at 8:43 PM CDT.

The tornado touched down about 1.5 miles northeast of Altona in Knox County (NWS central Illinois) traveling northward and proceeded north into Henry County where it destroyed two large grain bins and tossed the debris for nearly a mile to the northeast. The tornado snapped a power pole and a large tree along US Highway 34 before dissipating along N 300 Ave where it damaged an outbuilding.

The tornado touched down about a mile west of Victoria in Knox County Illinois (NWS Lincoln) traveling north northeast. It went through Galva where it snapped several trees, then it progressed northeast damaging more trees and an outbuilding along an approximately 7.2 miles path before dissipating about 3 miles west of Kewanee.

A brief EF-0 tornado caused damage to a door on an outbuilding. The tornado then caused branch damage before ending shortly. The peak estimated wind speed was 80 mph.

An EF-1 tornado formed to the northwest of Kewanee and tracked to the north and ended just south of Atkinson. Trees along the 7 mile path were snapped at the trunk. Some branches were downed as well. At the end of the path a structure was destroyed by max winds estimated to be 95 MPH.

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 tornado watch, issued at 20:41 UTC and running to 02:06 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:45 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.

Galesburg (GBG), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:36 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

39 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.