May 21, 2024
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More tornadoes confirmed from storm that hit Will, neighboring counties

Trees uprooted but damage to buildings relatively minor

By Bob Okon
An oak tree was uprooted and shingles were blown off a house in the River Crossing subdivision of Shorewood by what the National Weather Service said was an EF-1 tornado that went through the area Friday, July 30, 2023.

An oak tree was uprooted and shingles were blown off a house in the River Crossing subdivision of Shorewood by what the National Weather Service said was an EF-1 tornado that went through the area Friday night.

The National Weather Service has upped the number of area tornadoes confirmed from the late Friday night storms to six, including three that hit parts of Will County.

The tornadoes were all at EF1 or EF0 levels, which are relatively low-grade, but still produced peak winds of between 80 mph and 110 mph.

The fifth and sixth tornadoes confirmed by NWS were both at EF0 level, meaning wind speeds were between 65 mph and 85 mph.

One is believed to have started near the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie north of Wilmington and moved into the area near Wilton Center, where several trees were uprooted and one fell on a house, before ending in the Peotone area.

The other in Kendall County moved from Newark to Lisbon, downing trees and damaging the roofs of a few residences. Farm silos also were damaged, NWS said.

“Insulation material was found plastered on the east side of a pole barn on Stephens Road, and a broken window and siding damage was seen on the north side of Duane’s Motel,” according to the NWS report of the Kendall County tornado.

The two tornadoes were added to a list of four put out by NWS on Sunday morning.

Those included an EF1 tornado believed to have had a peak wind speed of 95 mph that started in Minooka and moved through Shorewood before ending on the West Side of Joliet.

The tornado is believed to have intensified when it reached the DuPage River in Shorewood.

“We had a couple of neighborhoods that had a lot of trees down,” Shorewood Mayor Clarence DeBold said.

A graphic from the National Weather Service showing damage from Friday's storm.

A graphic from the National Weather Service depicting the storms that passed through the area Friday night. (Photo contributed by the National Weather Service)

Those subdivisions are on two sides of the DuPage River: River Crossing and Lake Forrest.

DeBold said some houses were damaged, but most of the damage was from falling trees.

A survey crew was back in Shorewood on Monday to determine if another tornado went through the north part of town, National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Ratzer said.

“We had other reports of wind damage,” Ratzer said. “They’re looking to see if it was straight winds or something else.”

Whether it was heavy winds or low-grade tornadoes that did the damage might not matter much, but the several tornadoes spun out of the storm system suggest the damage could have been much worse.

Ratzer said the kind of storm system that moved into the area Friday night can produce multiple low-grade tornadoes.

“This was a linear-type system; there was a line of thunderstorms,” he said. “On the leading edge of the storm, you can get these localized surges of wind speed for short distances.”

The tornadoes produced by the Friday storm might have had relatively low wind speeds for tornadoes, but they appeared to have lasted for some distance.

Ratzer said the tornadoes were not likely on the ground the entire time.

The tornado that went from the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie to Peotone is estimated to have lasted for 15.4 miles.

A large tree was blown over and electric poles damaged by Friday's early morning storm at the corner of Van Buren and W. Fourth Street in Dixon. Zachary Taylor's home, pictured here, escaped major damage but the tree crushed his van. ComEd workers were dispatched to the area to repair damaged electrical lines and poles to restore power to residents in the area as temperatures climbed into the mid-90s.

Storm damage Friday night was spread across northern Illinois as shown here in Dixon where both a large tree and electric poles fell in a residential neighborhood. (Earleen Hinton/Shaw Media)

The tornado that went through Shorewood before ending in Joliet is estimated to have lasted for 7.6 miles.

A survey crew believes the path took the tornado through the athletic fields at the Inwood Sports Complex in Joliet, where little harm was done.

“Nothing substantial,” Joliet Park District Executive Director Brad Staab said, describing the damage as a couple of pieces of roofing from a maintenance shed blowing into a fence. “We were able to play baseball Saturday morning.”

An EF0 tornado that started in Minooka and went through Channahon before ending in the Joliet area reached an estimated wind speed of 85 mph. It damaged a church roof in Minooka.

The two other confirmed tornadoes were In Kankakee County.

An EF1 tornado in Momence reached an estimated top wind speed of 110 mph, tearing off part of a roof and wall at an apartment complex.

An EF0 tornado that went through sections of Kankakee and Bradley was estimated at peak wind speed of 80 mph, mostly damaging trees.