EF0 tornado, (Pnt) Pontiac Municipal Airport to Cayuga, Illinois, March 10, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

March 10, 2026

Touchdown

4:49 PM CDT (21:49 UTC)

Lifted

4:51 PM CDT (21:51 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Livingston County

Touchdown point

40.902, -88.630

Lift-off point

40.906, -88.613

Highest wind the damage implies

75 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LOT

The office's name for it

Pontiac

Survey last edited

March 24, 2026

Record number

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

Based on video evidence, a brief tornado occurred just north of Pontiac. Surveillance video shared by a property owner showed a clear circulation with multiple sub-vortices on a quarry lake just west of 1600 East Road, north of old US-66. The tornado was observed in storm chaser videos crossing old US-66 just south of North Creek. Damage along the path of the tornado included the removal of a roof to a boat house and damage to a dock, garage, and fence. The maximum width of the tornado was estimated from the aforementioned surveillance and storm chaser videos.

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

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LOT, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Fence panels blown down to the north.
• Photos show damage to a wooden boathouse. Wind entered from open east side and lofted roof to the SW. Debris mostly remained together as large pieces. Nearby area has scattered small branches.
• West facing time-stamped surveillance camera video shows sub-vortex of a larger tornado moving from NW to SE and directly impacting property. Tornado was lofting small debris but no significant damage to structure.
• West facing time-stamped surveillance camera video shows multiple vortices rotating in the center of a quarry.

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

Scattered severe thunderstorms produced numerous tornadoes and large to giant hail as they moved across northern Illinois during the late afternoon and evening of March 10th. Included in the 9 total tornadoes in northeast Illinois that day is an EF-3 which tracked from the south side of Kankakee into Newton and Jasper counties in Indiana and devastated a portion of Aroma Park. There were two primary corridors of large hail; one extending from northern Will County into the city of Chicago, which produced hail upwards of 4.8 inches in diameter, and another from central Livingston County extending east across Kankakee County. Nearly a dozen individual reports of hail greater than 4 inches came out of this southernmost corridor, and a 6.6 inch hailstone found in Kankakee is pending as the new Illinois state record.

Based on video evidence, a brief EF-0 tornado occurred just north of Pontiac. Surveillance video shared by a property owner showed a clear circulation with multiple sub-vortices on a quarry lake just west of 1600 East Road, north of old US-66. The tornado was observed in storm chaser videos crossing old US-66 just south of North Creek. Damage along the path of the tornado included the removal of a roof to a boat house and damage to a dock, garage, and fence. The maximum width of the tornado of 175 yards was estimated from the aforementioned surveillance and storm chaser videos. Peak winds were estimated at 75 mph.

A Livingston County deputy reported a brief tornado near 2200 North Road and old US-66 east of the community of Cayuga. The time and location of the report was consistent with rotation indicated by radar. There is no known damage that was caused by the tornado.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS LOT issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:47 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:57 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:50 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.

Pontiac (PNT), 2 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Chicago radar (KLOT), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:48 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

20 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.