Tornado Hits Southeast Champaign County

There are no reports of injuries after a tornado touched down in parts of Southeast Champaign County shortly before 7 p.m. Friday. Champaign County Sheriff’s Deputies reported on Twitter that two homes and a corn crib were destroyed by the storm. Meteorologist Jeff Frame tracked the tornado, saying it was on the ground for at least 17 minutes.

Frame got closer as he tracked the storm from northwest of Broadlands to southwest of Homer.

“We saw the tornado very clearly hit a farmhouse," he said. "So after the tornado had cleared off to the east, we drove over there.  We saw that the farmhouse had been largely destroyed, or blown off its foundation would be a better way to put it. The walls and stuff were still partially up, but it had been blown over. That was the worst destruction that we saw, but it was the only house I got close to that the tornado happened to hit.”

Frame says residents were fortunate since the funnel cloud covered a mostly rural area. He estimates the tornado was an EF-2 based on the damage, but expected the National Weather Service to start its survey work Saturday.

The same storm produced another tornado in Vermilion County, and possibly another near Catlin. The News-Gazette reports trees were knocked down along US Route 136, and windows blown out at homes on the northeast of Danville.  

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