EF1 tornado, Paris Stewart Arpt to Edgar Cty Arpt Paris, Illinois, March 14, 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

March 14, 2025

Touchdown

12:50 AM CDT (05:50 UTC)

Lifted

12:55 AM CDT (05:55 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

6.4 miles (10.4 km)

Path width

425 yards (389 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Edgar County

Touchdown point

39.580, -87.710

Lift-off point

39.650, -87.630

Record number

2503142350-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Lots of trees with branches snapped.
• One uprooted and one in distance with lots of broken branches.
• Two evergreens snapped and two to three other trees with snapped branches.
• One large tree fell into house and porch and pushed house to one side, damaging foundation.

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

A potent low pressure system progressed across the Midwest on Friday, March 14, 2025. Ahead of this system, temperatures soared nearly 30 degrees above normal with high temperatures reaching the low 80s across central Illinois. Into the evening and overnight hours, a cold front swept across Illinois, with a line of severe thunderstorms developing ahead of the front. These storms produced widespread damaging straight-line winds and eight tornadoes within the NWS Lincoln County Warning Area, all of which occurred in eastern Illinois. Two of these tornadoes were rated EF-2: one in Moultrie and Piatt counties, and another in Cumberland and Coles counties. The latter of these resulted in two injuries.

The tornado began one mile south of Paris near the intersection of east 750th Road and north 1400th St., where it leveled an outbuilding and snapped a tree, resulting in damage to a house. The tornado then tracked northeast, moving through the south and east parts of Paris where it damaged several homes, mobile homes, and trees. The tornado continued to snap and uproot trees as it tracked to the west and north of the Sycamore Hills County Club. The tornado then damaged numerous trees at properties along Indian Boundary Road. The tornado crossed an open field before downing a dozen power poles along east 1200 road before dissipating to the northeast.

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 05:34 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 01:02 UTC and running to 07:09 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 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 Indianapolis radar (KIND), 119 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:47 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.

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

53 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.