Unrated tornado, Laurette, 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

2:13 PM CDT (19:13 UTC)

Lifted

2:14 PM CDT (19:14 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

McLean County

Touchdown point

40.327, -88.536

Lift-off point

40.328, -88.534

Record number

2506181313-01

9 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 100 mph.

• Damage began about half mile southwest in corn field
• Corn flattened. Beginning point of tornado just to northeast in field.
• Tornado dissipated just northeast of this location in field.
• Video relayed by broadcast media shows a brief tornado touchdown in a field to the east of Route 54 near Bellflower. The McLean County Emergency Manager reported no damage in the area, so this tornado has been labeled EF-Unknown.

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.

A video relayed by broadcast media showed a rope-shaped tornado occurring in a field to the east of Route 54 near Bellflower for about one minute. Further investigation of the video revealed that this brief tornado occurred north of E 300 North Road and west of N 3850 East Road, approximately one mile southwest of Bellflower.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:50 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:46 UTC and running to 20:18 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. 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.

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:11 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.