Severe weather season got off to a loud start across the Tri-States region. Two severe thunderstorms fired in the region on March 15 and intensified quickly. They first started with Severe Thunderstorm Warnings in which the storms were producing large hail.
The further west storm quickly intensified and started rotating which prompted Tornado Warnings.
The two storms ended up merging and that allowed the storms to really intensify and cause tornado touchdowns. When the storms were all set and done, there were damage reports in Good Hope. No injuries or fatalities were reported from this tornado. The tornado has been rated an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale by the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities. The tornado had winds up to 115 MPH and a path length of 116.0 miles. The path width at one point reached up to 900 yards. The tornado touched down at 6:26 PM in Good Hope and dissipated at 6:42 PM at around St Augustine (2.5 miles south of St. Augustine to be exact). An EF-2 tornado is defined as a tornado with winds ranging from 111 MPH to 135 MPH so this particular tornado was on the low end of the EF-2 category. NEWS3 received pictures of the severe weather damage and the severe weather in action across the region. If you want to submit a picture to us, please send them to us at news3wiu@gmail.com or post them to our Facebook or Twitter pages.
