{"id":45464,"date":"2026-08-31T07:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=45464"},"modified":"2026-08-31T07:16:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:16:39","slug":"illinois-tornado-count-keeps-climbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/45464-illinois-tornado-count-keeps-climbing\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Tornado Count Keeps Climbing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print<\/span><\/a><\/div>
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By Jim Taylor FarmWeek.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford continues to add up tornadoes in 2026, and the numbers keep climbing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fifteen have occurred in August, pushing the state over the 200-number mark, which shatters the previous record of 142 set in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ford is in the process of putting together a 2026 timeline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSome of these have been so long ago that it feels like we forgot about them,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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The first tornado outbreak occurred in mid-February.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe had 14 tornadoes strewn across southeast Illinois from Effingham County over to the Indiana border,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Multiple tornado outbreaks also happened in March.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere was one along the I70 corridor from the St. Louis Metro East area up to the Effingham area,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also had those really intense storms that moved across from LaSalle to Kankakee, so we had about 30 tornadoes in March.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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April was a very active month with 70 tornadoes impacting the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMost of those were in central Illinois, including a lot in Logan County and Tazewell County,\u201d Ford said. \u201cThere was an EF2 tornado in Lena, which was an intense event in April.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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May was a quiet month with just one tornado, but things ramped back up in June with 90 tornadoes across the state including the June 17th twister that caused so much damage in our area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAgain hot spots were in central and southeast Illinois, including an EF3 that spun up north of Peoria and the Washburn area and moved across and caused some damage in Dwight and Streator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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July included 10 tornadoes with several in the Chicagoland area; 15 tornadoes have been recorded this month with most in northern Illinois.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Taylor FarmWeek.com Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford continues to add up tornadoes in 2026, and the numbers keep climbing. Fifteen have occurred in August, pushing the state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIllinois Tornado Count Keeps Climbing - Effingham's News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham's News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/45464-illinois-tornado-count-keeps-climbing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illinois Tornado Count Keeps Climbing - 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