It has been 10 years since the historic tornado outbreak of November 17, 2013, impacted Illinois and surrounding states. Let’s take a look back at the event and the days and hours leading up to the tornado outbreak.
4 Days Out
The SPC issued its first convective outlook for severe weather potential on November 13, a whole four days before the event. Although the risk was south of the area that would ultimately see the brunt of the outbreak, it showed that a widespread severe weather event was possible.
3 Days Out
The next update from the SPC on November 14th shifted the risk area northward into the Ohio Valley. The SPC discussed a widespread severe weather outbreak with damaging winds and a few tornadoes on the 17th.
2 Days Out
On November 15th, the SPC issued its first slight risk for the event, including a large portion of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region. The SPC had backed off on the talk of tornadoes a bit and shifted the focus to a damaging wind event.
1 Day Out
On November 16th, the SPC upgraded the risk area to a moderate risk, with the primary risk being damaging winds. At this time, models started to show a more volatile environment with a wind profile supportive of long-track supercells capable of producing strong tornadoes. As the day went on and more data came in, it was apparent that a tornado outbreak was a real possibility across the risk area.
Day of Outbreak
On November 17th, the day of the event, the SPC upgraded to a high-risk outlook. The SPC discussed the potential for long-tracked strong tornadoes along with damaging winds.
At 8:40 am, Tornado Watch #561 was issued for most of Illinois. This was a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Tornado) Watch, representing the highest level of watches, indicating a threat for several intense, long-track tornadoes.
The severe weather outbreak commenced early in the day ahead of an advancing cold front. Discrete supercells developed and swiftly began generating severe weather. These storms moved across the state of Illinois at speeds exceeding 65 mph, and the outbreak had concluded for most of Illinois by noon.
Unfortunately, several strong tornadoes occurred in the area, including two EF-4 tornadoes. One struck Washington, Illinois, and another hit New Minden, IL.
Although the most notable tornado that occurred on November 17, 2013, was the EF-4 that devastated Washington, IL, there were several strong tornadoes that impacted people all over the Midwest. The November 17 outbreak had a total of 77 tornadoes and $1.6 billion in damages.
Facts provided by NWS
- This event had just over 70 tornadoes across seven states – Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Illinois and Indiana had 55 of these tornadoes.
- There were 25 tornadoes in Illinois, with 14 being significant (EF-2 or stronger). Of these, two were EF-4 and three were EF-3.
- At the time, this ranked as the 4th largest outbreak for the state of Illinois, in terms of number of tornadoes, since 1950.
- One supercell in Illinois produced five tornadoes, which were the ones to impact Pekin, Washington, Dana, Coal City, Manhattan, and Frankfort.
- The EF-4 tornado with maximum estimated winds of 190 mph that struck Washington, IL was the strongest on record for Illinois in the month of November since 1950.
- 101 tornado warnings were issued for Illinois by the National Weather Service on November 17.
For a great write up visit NWS Lincoln webpage at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b13d60d65c434d63a915cc7a88afa6fd
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