EF0 tornado, Luther, Illinois, September 20, 2025

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

September 20, 2025

Touchdown

3:09 PM CDT (20:09 UTC)

Lifted

3:15 PM CDT (20:15 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

40 yards (37 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mason County

Touchdown point

40.215, -89.658

Lift-off point

40.187, -89.632

Record number

2509201409-01

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 EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 65 mph.

• Approximate location of start of tornado from Sentinel satellite data.
• End of tornado path evident from Sentinel satellite data.
• Tornado path evident from Sentinel satellite data.
• Section of fence blown over.

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

An upper-level disturbance interacting with a nearly stationary frontal boundary triggered clusters of strong thunderstorms across central Illinois during the afternoon of September 20th. A storm cell intersecting an outflow boundary over Mason County resulted in an EF-0 tornado east of Mason City. Meanwhile other storms produced hail as large as quarters and isolated minor wind damage.

A tornado touched down in a field 2 miles east-northeast of Mason City at 3:09 PM CDT. It tracked slowly southeastward through fields causing minor tree damage before crossing Highway 10 and dissipating 2 miles west of New Holland at 3:15 PM CDT.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:44 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), 27 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:08 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

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.