Tornadoes · United States · Illinois · 2026

Unrated tornado, Tazewell County, Illinois, April 3, 2026

This Unrated tornado ran 0.2 miles across Tazewell County on April 3, 2026, touching down at 6:00 PM CDT. It killed nobody.

Preliminary. This is NWS ILX's damage survey, filed in the Damage Assessment Toolkit as 3 SW Hopedale Tornado. The rating, the path and the casualties are the survey's and can change while it is revised. The Storm Prediction Center compiles the official record of 2026 from these surveys and publishes it in the spring of 2027; this page moves to that tornado's permanent address when it does.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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 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. Unratedthis tornado

    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.

The survey

Rating, as surveyed
Unrated, preliminary
Date
April 3, 2026
Touchdown
6:00 PM CDT (23:00 UTC)
Path length
0.2 miles (0.3 km)
Path width
0 yards (0 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Tazewell County
Touchdown point
40.392, -89.472
Lift-off point
40.392, -89.468
Surveyed by
NWS ILX
The office's name for it
3 SW Hopedale Tornado
Survey last edited
April 4, 2026
Record number
None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

What the survey found

Multiple reports of a brief tornado in a farm field positioned latitudinally between County Road 500 and State Route 122, and longitudinally between Interstate 155 and Brownwood Rd. Tornado occurred in southern Tazewell County, approximately 3-4 miles SW of Hopedale.

Open field; no known damage.

Photo credit goes to Andrew Pritchard.

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

The damage survey

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU.

  • Open field; no known damage.

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

The air that afternoon

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.

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z

11.0 hours before the tornado, 79 km from the path. April 3, 2026.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2026-04-03Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -99553, lifted condensation level 1023 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 12:00Z on 2026-04-03The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 172 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 47 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-99553 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1023 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
47 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
31 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
172 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
229 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
3.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z

1.0 hours after it, 79 km from the path. April 4, 2026.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2026-04-04Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1147 joules per kilogram, CIN -23, lifted condensation level 1065 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Lincoln, IL at 00:00Z on 2026-04-04The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 167 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 44 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
1147 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-23 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2299 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1065 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
167 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
188 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.2
Supercell composite
8.8
0-3 km lapse rate
7.0 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Lincoln (AAA), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The radar

The Lincoln radar (KILX), 29 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:03 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 3, 2026

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

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 39:02 PM CDTEF1Oklahoma, OK2.90
April 39:15 PM CDTEF0Oklahoma, OK2.350
April 39:47 PM CDTEF0Pottawatomie, OK4.60
April 39:57 PM CDTEF1Pottawatomie, OK3.50
April 310:06 PM CDTEF1Seminole, OK4.00

What this means

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.

Sources

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.