Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2025

EF0 tornado, Redmon, Illinois, December 28, 2025

This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Edgar County on December 28, 2025, touching down at 4:45 PM CST and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
December 28, 2025
Touchdown
4:45 PM CST (22:45 UTC)
Lifted
4:46 PM CST (22:46 UTC)
On the ground
1 minutes
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Edgar County
Touchdown point
39.634, -87.844
Lift-off point
39.635, -87.841
Record number
2512281645-01

The damage survey

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

  • Video evidence of a tornado along with a report of damage to an outbuilding 1 mile southeast of Redmon.

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

What the Weather Service recorded

The airmass continued to destabilize across central Illinois during the afternoon of December 28th as high temperatures reached record values in the upper 60s to around 70 degrees and dewpoints hovered in the lower to middle 60s. Thanks to the high degree of instability and shear, a line of thunderstorms rapidly formed along an advancing cold front near the I-55 corridor by early afternoon. The storms then pushed eastward, producing 3 tornadoes and scattered damaging winds eastward to the Indiana border. The most significant tornado was rated EF-2 and caused considerable property damage just south of Decatur in Macon County.

Video evidence indicated that a tornado touched down about 1 mile east-southeast of Redmon at 4:45 PM CST. The tornado caused minor damage to an outbuilding before quickly dissipating at 4:46 PM CST.

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

The warnings

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 20:48 UTC and running to 23:49 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
20:48 UTC23:49 UTCTornado WatchILX
21:00 UTC16:02 UTCWind AdvisoryILX
22:13 UTC22:45 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILX
22:45 UTC23:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILX
23:00 UTC23:15 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningILX

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 forecast that day

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 19:46 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 air that afternoon

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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

10.8 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. December 28, 2025.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2025-12-28Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 45 joules per kilogram, CIN -143, lifted condensation level 755 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2025-12-28The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 88 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 70 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
45 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-143 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
755 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
70 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
9 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
88 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
232 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
-0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

1.2 hours after it, 86 km from the path. December 29, 2025.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2025-12-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -96090, lifted condensation level 600 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2025-12-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity -160 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 91 knots.1939587897117136Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-96090 J/kg
Surface CAPE
12 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
600 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
91 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
20 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
-160 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
18 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
2.9 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The radar

The Indianapolis radar (KIND), 134 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:47 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.

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
21:55 UTCTSTM WND DMG3 Ne ArthurDouglas, ILPortion of dairy barn damaged destroyed. Top of tree blown off.
21:58 UTCNON-TSTM WND GST 46Willard AirportChampaign, ILASOS station KCMI Willard Arpt.
22:34 UTCFUNNEL CLOUD1 N CharlestonColes, IL
22:40 UTCTSTM WND DMG3 Wnw CatlinVermilion, ILMultiple trees down, many shingles off roof, two power poles down.
22:45 UTCTORNADO1 Se RedmonEdgar, ILBrief touchdown east of Redmon. Public reported damage to an outbuilding.
00:26 UTCNON-TSTM WND GST 51Willard AirportChampaign, ILASOS station KCMI Willard Arpt.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of December 28, 2025

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
December 289:27 AM CSTEF1Tazewell, IL1.7200
December 282:52 PM CSTEF1Livingston, IL0.9125
December 282:59 PM CSTEF2Christian, IL23.4250
December 283:24 PM CSTEF1McLean, IL0.930
December 283:31 PM CSTEF0Ford, IL0.820
December 283:31 PM CSTEF0Iroquois, IL2.6100
December 283:40 PM CSTEF1Iroquois, IL9.5150
December 283:41 PM CSTEF0Iroquois, IL3.475
December 283:53 PM CSTUnratedIroquois, IL4.925
December 287:18 PM ESTEF1Greene, IN1.1751$1.5 million
December 286:36 PM CSTEF1Gibson, IN4.450$225,000
December 289:22 PM ESTEF0Harrison, IN0.160

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.