Unrated tornado, Gurney to Newmansville, Illinois, June 18, 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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

June 18, 2025

Touchdown

12:29 PM CDT (17:29 UTC)

Lifted

12:31 PM CDT (17:31 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cass County

Touchdown point

39.919, -90.044

Lift-off point

39.936, -90.029

Record number

2506181129-01

90 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• 16 large evergreens snapped
• Corn bent in varying directions.
• Entire roof over porch removed from house. The piece of roof that came off looks to have been dragged to the front yard from a different part of the property.
• Shed flipped over. No collapse of roofing or walls.

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

A mesoscale convective vortex, or MCV, moved into central Illinois late on the morning of Wednesday, June 18th. Moderate instability developed ahead of this feature, and as scattered storms formed they quickly obtained rotation due to shear from the MCV. A total of 14 tornadoes occurred within the NWS Central Illinois county warning area, mainly west of I-55. One minor injury occurred when winds associated with a tornado tossed a woman against her home in Morgan County. Across eastern Illinois, a line of storms developed during the afternoon, mainly producing wind damage before shifting east into Indiana. A wake low developed after the MCV passed, resulting in a short period of non-thunderstorm wind gusts, generally between 45 and 55 mph. The highest non-thunderstorm wind gust associated with the wake low was 58 mph.

Based on Sentinel satellite imagery, a tornado began 2.8 miles northwest of Ashland and traveled northeast, entirely through farm fields. The tornado lifted 3.5 miles north-northwest of Ashland. No damage was reported with this tornado, so no intensity rating could be assigned.

Video shared by a trained spotter showed a brief tornado occurred in eastern Cass County south of Newmansville. Sentinel satellite imagery showed the track began near Carson Road south of Cox Creek Road, and tracked northeast through mainly farm fields to Pschirrer Road. It crossed County Line Road just north of Pschirrer Road, and continued into Menard County for another 1.3 miles. No damage was reported in either county, so an intensity rating could not be assigned.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:13 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:46 UTC and running to 18:35 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:19 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.

Jacksonville (IJX), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 65 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:29 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

29 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.