EF1 tornado, Hoopeston to Cheneyville, Illinois, June 11, 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

June 11, 2026

Touchdown

7:44 PM CDT (00:44 UTC)

Lifted

7:52 PM CDT (00:52 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Vermilion County

Touchdown point

40.452, -87.702

Lift-off point

40.471, -87.551

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS ILX

The office's name for it

Hoopeston-Cheneyville Tornado

Survey last edited

June 13, 2026

Record number

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

The tornado touched down about a half mile south of Highway 9 east of county road 1300E, overturning an irrigation pivot. It crossed Highway 1 on the south edge of town and damaged the roof of a tractor dealership. It skirted the south edge of Hoopeston, causing damage to trees and shingles. It strengthened by the time it reached the intersection of Highway 9 and 1700E, snapping tree trunks and damaging the roof of a house. Down the road, an outbuilding was flattened, and several additional trees were snapped. It entered Cheneyville and snapped additional tree trunks; significant damage to buildings at the intersection of Highway 9 and 1900E was likely due to rear-flank downdraft winds up to 100 mph. The tornado appears to have lifted before reaching the Indiana border.

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

61 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX and NWS IND and NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Damage to the roof of the John Deere facility, reported as a "hole in the roof"
• Grain bins/grain elevator destroyed
• Center pivot irrigation tipped over about half mile east
• Damage in tree line about a quarter mile west

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

A strong storm system interacted with a highly unstable and sheared environment to produce a significant severe weather outbreak across central Illinois during the late afternoon and evening of June 11th. Scattered supercell thunderstorms initially developed west of the I-55 corridor along a pre-frontal trough during the afternoon. One of these storms produced an EF-3 tornado that impacted portions of Woodford and Marshall counties and dropped tennis ball-sized hail (2.50 diameter). Additional cells rapidly developed further west across southeastern Iowa into northern Missouri ahead of an advancing cold front. These storms congealed into a line and pushed eastward into central Illinois during the evening. Widespread damaging wind gusts of 60-70mph occurred with the line along and north of the I-72 corridor. After storm surveys were completed, it was discovered an additional 8 tornadoes were embedded within the line...creating pockets of enhanced damage.

A tornado touched down 2 miles southwest of Hoopeston about a half mile south of IL-9 and just east of North 1300 East Road at 7:44pm CDT. The tornado overturned an irrigation pivot, then crossed IL-1 and damaged the roof of a tractor dealership. As it skirted along the southern edge of Hoopeston, it damaged numerous trees and stripped shingles off a few homes. The tornado then strengthened as it reached the intersection of IL-9 and North 1700 East Road where it snapped trees and damaged the roof of a home. Further east, it flattened an outbuilding and damaged several more trees as it entered Cheneyville. Significant damage to a couple buildings southwest of Cheneyville near the intersection of IL-9 and North 1900 East Road was determined to be rear-flank downdraft winds of up to 100mph. The tornado dissipated southeast of the intersection of East 4200 North Road and North 2100 East Road at 7:52pm CDT.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:28 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:04 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:09 UTC and running to 03:04 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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.

Danville (DNV), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Chicago radar (KLOT), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:45 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

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

All 66 of them

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.