Rare EF-3 Tornado Traveled About 16 Miles From Naperville To Willow Springs, Weather Service Reports

NAPERVILLE (CBS) -- A rare EF-3 tornado traveled about 16 miles from Naperville to Willow Springs on Sunday night, losing intensity as it traveled on the ground for about 20 minutes, ripping apart homes along the way.

The storm quickly generated maximum140 mile per hour, EF-3 winds in Naperville and still was a very dangerous EF-2 as it passed over Woodridge. It then became and EF-1/EF-0 as it moved past Darien and Burr Ridge. The tornado was about a third of a mile wide, the National Weather Service said.

Damage was most severe in Naperville and Woodridge. Given the timing of the storm, late Sunday into early Monday morning, officials say it is a miracle nobody was killed and only about a dozen people were injured.

CBS 2's Charlie De Mar found tree limbs stacked more than 6 feet high in Woodridge, where many customers also remained without power.

In Naperville, CBS 2's Jermont Terry encountered many people shaking their heads in disbelief at the devastation – with tree limbs stacked high, and homes boarded up after being cleared out on one side of a street while homes were completely unaffected on the other side. A light pole was even left bent more than 90 degrees from its original upright position.

Indeed, the path of destruction was evident, yet the resilience of the community was overshadowing.

A second tornado has been confirmed as part of the storms that pounded the Chicago area Sunday night and left a path of destruction.

In addition to the EF-3 tornado that hit Woodridge and Naperville, the National Weather Service also confirmed another EF-0 tornado with winds of 85 mph, from just north of downtown Plainfield to Mistwood Golf Course in Romeoville.

Plainfield was where an EF-5 tornado left 29 people dead on Aug. 28, 1990.

Late Tuesday, a third tornado</a from the storms was confirmed. This tornado was an EF-0 with estimated wind speeds of 75 mph and a path of 3.3 miles, from Hobart to South Haven, Indiana.

This is the first significant tornado (rating of EF-2 or greater) to occur in the NWS Chicago County Warning Area since Feb. 28, 2017 (Naplate/Ottawa) and the first EF-2+ tornado to occur in the Chicago metro counties since June 22, 2015 (Coal City). There have been only two EF-3 tornadoes in the area in the past 20 years. There have been no fatalities in these major storms (EF-2+) since the Plainfield disaster in 1990.

List of EF-2+ tornadoes in the Chicago area:

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