EF1 tornado, Pearl City, Illinois, April 14, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

April 14, 2026

Touchdown

7:39 PM CDT (00:39 UTC)

Lifted

7:51 PM CDT (00:51 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

5.1 miles (8.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Stephenson County

Touchdown point

42.289, -89.862

Lift-off point

42.277, -89.769

Highest wind the damage implies

105 mph

Surveyed by

NWS DVN

The office's name for it

Pearl City

Survey last edited

April 21, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

A tornado formed briefly in the occlusion of an RFD northwest of Pearl City. It heavily damaged and destroyed several farm outbuildings, lifted a large farm wagon into an outbuilding, damaging the roof and side. The tornado also snapped several tree trunks and tree damage. Power poles were also snapped as the tornado crossed Illinois Highway 73 before lifting shortly thereafter. The tornado caused EF-1 damage with maximum estimated winds of 105 mph.

Written by NWS DVN in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

Significant severe storms on the afternoon and evening of April 14th brought numerous reports of large hail, damaging wind, and multiple tornadoes. The U.S. Hwy 20 corridor saw a long lived supercell that producing large hail (up to baseball size), damaging wind (88 mph gust at the Dubuque Airport), and several tornadoes. Additional storms developed further south between I-80 and Hwy 20 that brought large hail and a photogenic tornado near Onslow, IA. ||More storms quickly followed overnight and again on the next day, April 15th, bringing heavy rain, large hail, and isolated wind damage. Rainfall amounts over 1.5 were common north of I-80, with the highest totals over 3.5 seen in northwest IL. This caused a mudslide on Hwy 84 in Carroll County closing the road for an extended period of time.

A tornado formed briefly in the occlusion of an rear flank downdraft northwest of Pearl City. It heavily damaged and destroyed several farm outbuildings, lifted a large farm wagon into an outbuilding, damaging the roof and side. The tornado also snapped several tree trunks and tree damage. Power poles were also snapped as the tornado crossed Illinois Highway 73 before lifting shortly thereafter. The tornado caused EF-1 damage with maximum estimated winds of 105 mph.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:35 UTC and running to 03:00 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:36 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 Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:39 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 2026 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

24 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.