SPRINGFIELD — The National Weather Service in Lincoln has issued a tornado watch for Christian and Montgomery counties in central Illinois.
The watch is in place until 8 p.m. on Sunday.
A line of storms is capable of producing 75 MPH wind gusts and a few tornadoes as it progresses eastward at 50 mph.
The line runs north to south from Bloomington to Paducah, Kentucky, and east to Indianapolis.
A tornado warning had been issued earlier for the area around Stonington in Christian County.
There was an unconfirmed report about a tornado touching down in Edinburg, also in Christian County.
Most of central Illinois will be under a wind advisory from 3 p.m. on Sunday to noon on Monday. There could be scattered power outages because of downed tree limbs.
Climatologically, said John Bumgardner, an NWS meteorologist in Lincoln, tornadoes are pretty unusual for central Illinois this time of year, but the instability, with a strong low-pressure system pushing through the area “will give us tons of wind shear and that usually spells trouble.”
There is a history of tornadic activity in the area in December.
On Dec. 1, 2018, an EF-3 tornado devastated Taylorville and Hewittville in Christian County. More than 500 homes were damaged, including 66 homes with major damage and 34 that were deemed severely damaged or outright destroyed.
Storm surveys and reports indicated then that 29 tornadoes occurred across the state, the largest December outbreak since 1957, according to NWS.
Temperatures were around 70 degrees in Springfield late Sunday morning, but by midnight, the area will be dealing with wind chills in the single digits and by 2 to 3 a.m. Monday, those wind chills should be below zero, Bumgardner said.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Two central Illinois counties under tornado watch issued by NWS
Reporting by Steven Spearie, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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