Overview
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An unseasonably warm and moist air mass, combined with a strong storm system, produced a severe weather outbreak on Sunday, December 28th. A number of tornadoes occurred across Illinois with this system, including three within the NWS Lincoln county warning area. |
.png) Visible satellite image from 3:01 PM CST on December 28, 2025. |
Tornadoes
Select a tornado from the table to zoom into the track and view more information. The default table view is limited to 8 tracks, but can be scrolled by a mouse wheel or dynamically expanded. Additionally, the table can fill the entire window by clicking the small circular expanding arrow icon at the very top right of the table and returned to its original size by clicking the button again. The side information panel that opens over the map can be closed using the "X" on the upper right corner of the pop-up. Zoom into the map and click damage points to see detailed information and pictures from the surveys.
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NOTE: times shown below are local to your device's time zone. |
The Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale classifies tornadoes into the following categories:
| EF0 Weak 65-85 mph |
EF1 Moderate 86-110 mph |
EF2 Significant 111-135 mph |
EF3 Severe 136-165 mph |
EF4 Extreme 166-200 mph |
EF5 Catastrophic 200+ mph |
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| Tornadoes that fail to impact any ratable damage indicators on the EF-Scale are rated EF-Unknown (EF-U) | |||||
Storm Reports
Preliminary Local Storm Report...Summary National Weather Service Lincoln IL 526 PM CST Mon Dec 29 2025 ..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON... ..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE.... ..REMARKS.. 0900 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg Fairview 40.63N 90.16W 12/28/2025 Fulton IL Emergency Mngr Power lines downed by thunderstorm winds. 0924 AM Hail Pekin 40.57N 89.64W 12/28/2025 M1.00 Inch Tazewell IL Public Relayed via broadcast media. 0924 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg Pekin 40.57N 89.64W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Emergency Mngr Power line downed due to thunderstorm winds. 0926 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg Groveland 40.59N 89.53W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Emergency Mngr Power line downed due to thunderstorm winds. 0927 AM Tornado 3 SSW Groveland 40.55N 89.56W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Emergency Mngr An EF1 tornado with wind speeds up to 98 mph touched down along Allentown road about 3 miles east of Pekin High School and traveled about 1.75 miles along that road. It destroyed two outbuildings and snapped off numerous trees along Allentown Rd. It also snapped off 8 power poles along Springfield road north of the intersection with Allentown Rd. Some minor roof damage occurred east of Springfield Road as the tornado dissipated. 0930 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg 2 NW Morton 40.63N 89.49W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Broadcast Media Power outage due to thunderstorm winds. 0930 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 S Groveland 40.55N 89.54W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Emergency Mngr Barns destroyed. Possible tornado. 0930 AM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 NW Tremont 40.55N 89.53W 12/28/2025 Tazewell IL Emergency Mngr Several power poles snapped due to thunderstorm winds. 0954 AM Hail 5 NE Congerville 40.66N 89.13W 12/28/2025 M1.00 Inch Woodford IL Emergency Mngr 0259 PM Tornado 1 WNW Blue Mound 39.70N 89.14W 12/28/2025 Macon IL NWS Storm Survey The EF-2 tornado touched down in far eastern Christian County where a spotter captured video of the tornado heading toward and crossing IL Route 48. The tornado remained weak with minimal damage until it crossed US Hwy 51 and reached Elwin. The damage between Elwin and Turpin included numerous snapped large trees as well as several homes with roof damage. Some of the more significant damage with this tornado occurred along E Skyline Drive as the tornado removed the majority of the roofs off of 8 homes and produced complete destruction of a garage that was tossed to the next block. Very large trees were also snapped off in that area. More home roof damage and tree damage occurred between S Baltimore Ave and S Mount Zion Rd, as the tornado crossed Bentonville Rd at Mount Zion Rd. The tornado weakened after that point, but was video taped by a couple of spotters progressing east all the way into Piatt County before dissipating near State Hwy 32. The tornado was on the ground for 34 minutes covering 23.6 miles with a peak wind speed of 120 mph. 0315 PM Tornado 3 E Elwin 39.79N 88.93W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Emergency Mngr Significant structural damage to home by a tornado. 0317 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 2 W Decatur 39.85N 88.99W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Public 0318 PM Tornado 2 NNW Mount Zion 39.80N 88.88W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Emergency Mngr Significant structure damage to home from a tornado. 0318 PM Tornado 2 NW Mount Zion 39.80N 88.89W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Emergency Mngr 8 homes destroyed by a tornado. 0319 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg Mount Zion 39.78N 88.87W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Public Several trees damaged. 0319 PM Tornado 2 WSW Long Creek 39.80N 88.87W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Emergency Mngr Garage destroyed, roof blown off a home and power lines down by a tornado. 0320 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 2 W Mount Zion 39.78N 88.91W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Public Multiple trees snapped. Possible tornado. Twitter report. 0324 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 4 SE Owaneco 39.44N 89.15W 12/28/2025 Christian IL Emergency Mngr Tree downed by thunderstorm winds. 0325 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 ESE Saybrook 40.42N 88.47W 12/28/2025 McLean IL Broadcast Media Farm outbuilding destroyed. 0330 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 WNW La Place 39.82N 88.77W 12/28/2025 Macon IL Broadcast Media Power lines were blown down. Possible tornado damage. Time estimated by radar. 0355 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 NE Arthur 39.74N 88.43W 12/28/2025 Douglas IL Public Portion of dairy barn damaged destroyed. Top of tree blown off. 0434 PM Funnel Cloud 1 N Charleston 39.49N 88.18W 12/28/2025 Coles IL Public 0440 PM Tstm Wnd Dmg 3 WNW Catlin 40.08N 87.75W 12/28/2025 Vermilion IL Emergency Mngr Multiple trees down, many shingles off roof, two power poles down. 0445 PM Tornado 1 SE Redmon 39.64N 87.85W 12/28/2025 Edgar IL Storm Chaser Brief touchdown east of Redmon. Public reported damage to an outbuilding.
Radar
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| Radar reflectivity showing a broken line of storms near/east of I-55 around 2:55 PM on December 28, 2025. Yellow boxes indicate severe thunderstorm warnings. Red boxes indicate tornado warnings. | Radar velocity showing rotation approaching Blue Mound, IL, from the southwest around 2:50 PM. A tornado warning was in effect. | Radar velocity showing a rotational couplet moving into the Mount Zion and Long Creek area. A tornado was in progress. | Caption |
Photos & Video
Damage Photos
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| Tornado damage to a residence in between Turpin and Long Creek (Photo: NWS Damage Survey) |
Tornado damage to a garage near Route 121 southeast of Decatur. (Photo: NWS Damage Survey) |
Tornado damage to a barn in Tazewell County from morning storms on December 28, 2025 (Photo: NWS Damage Survey) |
Tornado damage to a garage between Turpin and Long Creek. (Photo: NWS Damage Survey) |
Environment
A strengthening low pressure system tracked north of the NWS Lincoln County Warning Area, and approached Chicago by mid-afternoon on Sunday, December 28th. A robust cold front extended southwestward, and swept across Illinois. The system results in some locations setting record high temperatures, with highs in the low 70s. Unseasonably high moisture content was also in place, with dewpoints above 60 degrees (green shading in Figure 2). This resulted in moderate instability (fuel), which combined with very strong wind shear led to the development of a line of strong to severe thunderstorms along the cold front.
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| Figure 1: WPC surface analysis from 3 PM 12/28/25 | Figure 2: Surface temperature, dewpoint (shaded), and mean sea level pressure (black contours) | Figure 3: Caption |
The storm environment was characterized by moderate to seasonably high instability (fuel), with surface-based CAPE values over 1000 J/kg. The dynamic system also had very strong wind shear, with low-level helicity (spin) values over 250 m2/s2. Values over 100 are often considered supportive of tornadoes, assuming other ingredients are also present.
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| Figure 4: Temperature, moisture, and wind data from the NWS Lincoln 19z (1pm) weather balloon on December 28, 2025. | Figure 5: Surface-based convective available potential energy (CAPE) (red contours). Values of 500 to 1000 indicated moderate fuel for thunderstorms. | Figure 6: Low-level (surface to 3 km AGL) wind shear. Values were over 50 knots ahead of the cold front, which is very high. |
Additional environmental data:
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| Figure 7: A line chart of temperature at the Logan County Airport. Temperatures plunged on the afternoon of Dec 28 following a strong cold frontal passage. | Figure 8: 3-hour temperature change between Noon and 3 PM on December 28, 2025. Temperatures dropped as much as 30 degrees in three hours behind the front. | Figure 9: Caption |
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