The National Weather Service has confirmed at least four tornadoes swept through northern Illinois on April 17 — an EF2 in Lena, an EF1 in Roscoe, an EF1 in Harrison and and EFU or “unknown” in Pecatonica.
The most severe of the four was the EF2 in Lena with wind gusts as high as 130 mph.
According to the weather service, the Lena tornado traveled 8.5 miles and was as wide as 750 yards.
The tornado, which occurred between 3:30 and 4 p.m., started southwest of Lena along U.S. 20 and lifted just southwest of McConnell.
“When the tornado begun it immediately caused EF1 damage to trees, gaining strength to an EF2 tornado snapping many power poles southwest of Lena. The tornado turned to the right, into town causing a lot of roof damage and tree damage,” the weather service website states. “A lot of houses had shingle and siding damage. The most significant damage occurred on Grove Street, where three houses lost their entire roof structure. Two of the homes experienced partial exterior wall collapses.”
The Harrison tornado started near the intersection of Meridian Road and Favor Rockford, according to the weather serive. It traveled 3.7 miles with peak winds of 110 mph. This tornado impacted two farmsteads, causing significant damage to outbuildings and snapping and uprooting multiple trees. The roof of an older two-story house was removed, several trees were snapped, and an old barn was destroyed.
The Roscoe tornado had peak winds of 95 mph and traveled 11.2 miles from the intersection of Freeport and Bates Road to the Winnebago-Boone county line.
“The tornado produced additional tree damage as it tracked eastward along Roscoe Road before entering the west side of Roscoe and reaching its peak intensity as it tracked through the Hawks Point, Crystal Hills, and Oxford Commons subdivisions. There, multiple homes had portions of their roofs torn off or damaged and had sections of siding and fascia peeled off. A few homes also had their garage doors blown in, leading to parts of their garage walls getting blown out in a few cases.”
Numerous trees were uprooted or damaged and several power poles were damaged as well a farm outbuilding.
The EFU tornado in Pectonica was spotted about 4:35 to 4:37 p.m. It was on the ground in an open field about three mile north of Pecatonica. According the weather service it was on the ground for about two minutes, traveled less than a mile and caused no known damage.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: National Weather Service confirms four tornadoes in northwest Illinois
Reporting by Corina Curry, Rockford Register Star / Rockford Register Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
