EF1 tornado, Grand Detour, Illinois, April 2, 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 2, 2026

Touchdown

6:24 PM CDT (23:24 UTC)

Lifted

6:25 PM CDT (23:25 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (0.9 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Ogle County

Touchdown point

41.943, -89.415

Lift-off point

41.949, -89.407

Highest wind the damage implies

105 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LOT

The office's name for it

Pine Creek Township

Survey last edited

April 4, 2026

Record number

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

A brief tornado with a path length of less than one mile occurred along Ridge Road between Grand Detour and Oregon in southern Ogle County. The tornado caused damage to a few buildings and trees between Penn Corner Road and Henry Road. One house had approximately two-thirds of its roof removed by the tornado. This was the most significant damage that was caused by the tornado, allowing it to be assigned a high-end EF-1 rating.

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

43 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• Multiple power poles snapped.
• Whole row of softwood trees snapped.
• Garage swept off foundation and blown into the adjacent field.
• Minor soffit damage to house

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

Scattered thunderstorms moved across portions of northern Illinois during the evening of April 2nd producing wind damage and three tornadoes.

An NWS damage survey confirmed that a brief EF-1 tornado with estimated peak winds of 105 mph impacted a few properties along Ridge Road in southern Ogle County. One house had two-thirds of its roof removed by the tornado and several trees were damaged by the tornado as well.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:13 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:43 UTC and running to 02:03 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 19:56 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), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:24 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

12 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.