Clean-up entered a second day Tuesday after a tornado tore through multiple communities in suburban Chicago late Sunday night.
A National Weather Service spokesman on Monday confirmed that a tornado touched down in Naperville, then Woodridge and the Darien area, moving from west to east late Sunday night. The tornado paralleled 75th Street into Woodridge and crossed 355, he said.
Based on an initial damage assessment of the Naperville area, the NWS estimated that the twister was an EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, packing wind speeds of nearly 140 miles per hour.
The NWS conducted a damage survey of the area on Monday morning after the tornado struck the area. According to the service, the tornado touched down near Naperville just after 11 p.m. Sunday and ended near Willow Springs.
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Naperville officials said the tornado was reported to have touched down at around 11:10 p.m. in the area just south of 75th Street and Ranchview Drive before moving east toward Woodridge.
The village of Woodridge said the tornado then touched down there at around 11:30 p.m., east of Route 53 between 83rd Street and 75th Street before again traveling east to the Lemont Road area
Naperville authorities said Monday that at least eight people were injured and 22 homes were left uninhabitable, with more than 130 homes that sustained at least some property damage.
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The NWS said crews have surveyed damage in Naperville and Woodridge, and will work its way through Darien, Burr Ridge and Willow Springs in coming days.
The damage the team surveyed was “consistent with wind speeds corresponding” to an EF-1 or EF-2 tornado, but one pocket of damage, located near Princeton Circle in Naperville, is consistent with EF-3 rating, indicating that the twister was packing wind speeds between 136 and 165 miles per hour.
The Enhanced Fujita Scale, which was brought into use in 2007, uses estimated wind gusts in three-second increments to determine the strength and power of a tornado.
All estimates are preliminary, and additional information about the path, length and width of the tornado will be accrued in coming days as the surveying crew continues its work.
