ILLINOIS—Tornado touchdowns were the weekend weather activity for downstate Illinois, most of them occurring Friday, but others taking place Saturday as well.
Friday’s activity took place in our South Counties region, where there were five confirmed touchdowns of tornadoes ranging from EF-0 to EF-1 (this is on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with wind speeds as follows:
EF-0 65-85 mph EF-1 86-110 mph EF-2 111-135 mph EF-3 136-165 mph EF-4 166-200 mph EF-5 greater than 200 mph
In White County, an EF-0 touched down a couple of miles west of Norris City; this tracked four and a half miles to just southwest of Enfield. In between, some corn was laid over, a small shed was blown over, and there were large tree limbs down.
In Hamilton County, an EF-0 touched down east of the community of Macedonia. It had a brief track according to the National Weather Service (.35 of a mile), and left broken tree limbs and laid-over corn in its wake.
In Franklin County, a tornado being reported as “high-end” EF-1 by the NWS hit the ground two miles southwest of West Frankfort and traveled for three-quarters of a mile, beginning at Davis Street and continuing until it lifted off the ground near Franklin County Road 6. This was probably the most damaging tornado, leaving a two-story home and garage with major damage, and uprooted trees and downed limbs.
In Jackson County, Murphysboro sustained a strike by an EF-1 that touched down on the town’s east side, near the Big Muddy River. It was on the ground for a quarter mile with 95 mph winds, and damaged power lines and one commercial building, which NWS did not identify.
(Our regular readers are familiar with Ang’s book, Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado; in that legendary storm, both West Frankfort and Murphysboro took direct hits from the March 18, 1925 tornado. Those two cities had the highest death tolls of the 14 communities impacted by the storm. Over the years, a lot of people have opined that Jackson and Franklin counties seem to be the tornado magnets of southern Illinois. Also, Hamilton and White counties both sustained damage and deaths in that storm, interestingly enough, in almost the same areas).
And in Johnson County, a location two miles southeast of Goreville was the spot of an EF-1 touchdown; this twister traveled about a half-mile, but due to the rural location, there were only damaged trees in the wake of the 90 mph winds.
Then on Saturday, our Central and Heartland counties were sites of tornado touchdowns as we recorded here. These occurred, according to the National Weather Service, in:
Lawrence County, where a tornado touched down in the Lake Sun & Sand area outside of Lawenceville at 2:26 p.m., and in
Richland County, where a in Olney a touchdown was reported two miles northwest of town (behind Walmart, where there were no cars moved around….just carts) at 4:45 p.m., and then north-northwest of Olney again about five minutes later, there was another official report of a separate tornado, which uprooted trees and blew down many limbs just north of the golf course.
The storms were the result of the remnants of Tropical Depression Bill, which came up through Texas and left flooding in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Locally, we experienced incredibly heavy rains in Marion and Harrisburg Friday night; and as of last night's overnight thunderstorms, creeks and rivers are out of their banks as we've observed so far today in Richland, Clay and Jasper counties. Follow us throughout the day as we travel the readership area; we'll report it as we see it. And...we're glad everyone's safe after this weekend's mess.