EF1 tornado, Annapolis to Riverview, Illinois, May 16, 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

May 16, 2025

Touchdown

6:38 PM CDT (23:38 UTC)

Lifted

6:55 PM CDT (23:55 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

10.7 miles (17.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

Counties

Crawford, Clark and Sullivan counties

Touchdown point

39.164, -87.803

Lift-off point

39.173, -87.604

Record number

2505161738-01

22 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and NWS IND, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Snapped trees looking west
• Debris in the field looking east
• Trees cleaned up but snapped off
• Trunks are 2 foot diameter

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

Scattered supercell thunderstorms developed in the vicinity of a nearly stationary frontal boundary draped along I-70 during the afternoon and early evening of May 16th. The storms first formed along a Springfield to Saint Louis line, then tracked east-northeastward generally south of the I-72 corridor, causing sporadic wind damage...most notably in the Decatur and Effingham areas. In addition, the highly unstable airmass to the south created vigorous storm updrafts which supported very large hail. Upon initial storm development, a few stones as large as golf balls occurred on the southeast side of Springfield to near Riverton. However, an even stronger cell later in the afternoon dropped 3-inch diameter hail (larger than a baseball) in Robinson in Crawford County. Another nearby storm produced an EF-1 tornado that tracked across portions of northern Crawford and southern Clark County before crossing the Wabash River into Sullivan County, Indiana.

A persistently humid and unseasonably warm air mass provided ample instability late on the 16th. Meanwhile, mid-level forcing streamed into central Indiana from west to east, around the southeastern periphery of a strong mid-latitude cyclone positioned over the Upper Midwest. These ingredients combined to produce rotating storms with damaging winds and tornadoes across southern central Indiana through the late day.

A tornado touched down in a field north of East 2100th Avenue and west of North 800th Street about 1.5 miles north-northeast of Annapolis at 6:38 PM CDT. The tornado tracked east-northeastward, causing minor tree damage before crossing into southern Clark County about 0.5 miles west of West York at 6:48 PM CDT.

This tornado crossed from Crawford County into southern Clark County about 0.5 miles west of West York at 6:48 PM CDT. It continued eastward, causing EF-1 damage to trees and a farm outbuilding on the west side of the town of York before crossing the Wabash River into the National Weather Service Indianapolis County Warning Area in Sullivan County, Indiana at 6:54 PM CDT.

The episode's fourth tornado, which had started in Crawford County, Illinois before reaching EF1 intensity in Clark County, IL, crossed the Wabash River into far northwestern Sullivan County while continuing to weaken through EF0 intensity. The tornado uprooted and downed several trees near its end point south-southwest of the Riverview community, about 600 feet northeast of the intersection of County Roads 1100 West and 600 North. Peak wind gusts were 80 mph.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:08 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:01 UTC and running to 00:10 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:31 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 Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:35 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

26 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.