A tornado left two people dead, five injured and three residences destroyed in downstate Jefferson County Sunday night, according to the Jefferson County sheriff’s office.
The two victims were identified as Delores B. Shelton, 83, and Sarita L. Kimble, 62, of Mount Vernon. The sheriff’s office said they were killed as a direct result of the storm in two of the destroyed residences, both single-wide mobile homes.
Five people were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
According to Andy Lesage, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Paducah, Kentucky, which covers Jefferson County and parts of southern Illinois, there were approximately half a dozen reports of observed tornadoes in the area. Only one of those — the tornado in Jefferson County — was confirmed.
Lesage said survey teams are working to determine how many tornadoes touched down in the region Sunday.
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Alex Erwin, a meteorologist at the weather service’s office in Lincoln, said survey teams had confirmed two tornadoes in Cumberland County and one in Shelby County on Sunday. Erwin said he expects the number to increase as surveys continue.
Illinois is already experiencing a record-breaking tornado season, with at least 149 tornadoes so far this year.
Experts told the Tribune the pace is not normal: Illinois experienced an average of 54 tornadoes annually between 1990 and 2020. The most it has ever recorded in a year was 142 in 2024 — a record that, only halfway through 2026, the state has already shattered. Even in a busy 2024, only 91 tornadoes had hit the state as of June 22, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.
Preliminary data from NOAA’s storm prediction center shows Illinois leading the rankings across the country, head and shoulders above the traditional Tornado Alley areas of Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas.
Right now, experts say there’s no exact explanation for the spike in tornadoes in Illinois.
Climate change can offer a partial explanation. As human activities such as fossil-fuel burning release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, air in the Midwest is becoming more saturated with humidity, a key ingredient of strong thunderstorms that can produce tornadoes.
In response to Sunday’s storms, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin addressed Illinois’ struggle to secure federal disaster relief under the Trump administration in a speech on the Senate floor.
“Disaster relief is no place to play politics,” he said. “I urge FEMA and the Trump administration (to put) aside political differences … and think about the families who have been touched by tornadoes and how desperate they are to get a helping hand.”
baiduhai’s Adriana Pérez contributed.