- Dec 4, 2018

CALM AFTER THE TORNADOES.....

The National Weather Service says at least 26 tornadoes touched down Saturday in Illinois, making the outbreak the state's LARGEST ON RECORD FOR DECEMBER. The event also ranks as the 3rd largest tornado outbreak for ANY month of the year! The weather service's Lincoln, Illinois, office says crews had confirmed 26 tornado touchdowns across central Illinois by Monday afternoon.

THIS VIDEO SHOT BY TSWAILS.com LEAD CHASER KHOLBY MARTIN.

Illinois' previous December tornado record was 21 storms during an outbreak on Dec. 18-19, 1957. Even with numerous injuries in Saturday's storms no fatalities were reported in Illinois due to the severe weather outbreak. The central Illinois town of Taylorville, located southeast of Springfield in Christian County, was the community hardest hit by Saturday's tornadoes.

Here's the tracks, all the storms formed near an advancing surface low and warm front.

The strongest storm struck the town of Taylorville, Illinois

The tornado had 155 mph winds pushing EF4 status. Here's a picture from the NWS taken by Robert Wolfe. An impressive wedge!

The storm did significant damage in Taylorville where 22 were injured and 400 homes were damaged. Taylorville had 41 minutes of lead time and a tornado emergency in place, otherwise the number of injured most likely would have been higher. The drone image below from the NWS was taken by Kevin Lighty

Here's where December tornadoes are typically found.

This is one of the more significant Tornado outbreaks of 2018 but even with 26 new twisters the year is close to a historical low.

Cold air is back to dominate the pattern the rest of this week so no thunderstorms to worry about. Outside of a few snow showers today the weather pattern looks very quiet over the Midwest the next 6-8 days. Just look at the surface map by Tuesday morning. A little rain in Florida, some spotty snow showers, otherwise massive amounts of high pressure coast to coast.