EF3 Tornado Kills Three in Illinois' Kankakee River Valley as Same Storm Drops Record 6.6-Inch Hail
On the afternoon and evening of March 10, 2026, intense supercell thunderstorms swept northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana in the United States. The strongest, the Kankakee-to-Roselawn tornado, was rated EF3 by the National Weather Service: with peak winds of 160 mph, a path 35.62 miles long and up to 1,550 yards wide, it killed three people and injured 11.
According to the final damage survey issued by the National Weather Service office in Chicago on March 24, the tornado began at 6:21 p.m. CDT southwest of Kankakee in Kankakee County, Illinois, traveled east-northeast through southern Kankakee and Aroma Park, crossed into Indiana through Lake Village and Roselawn, and dissipated west of De Motte at 7:39 p.m. Along Sandbar Road northeast of Aroma Park, three homes were completely destroyed and a heavy pickup truck was moved more than 100 feet into a ditch. The same supercell produced a family of 12 tornadoes that day, 10 of them confirmed in the Chicago office's area of responsibility.
The storms also produced exceptionally large hail. A hailstone measuring 6.6 inches in diameter, collected by a family on the southwest side of Kankakee and measured by 3D laser scanning at Northern Illinois University, was reviewed by the State Climate Extremes Committee and approved by the National Centers for Environmental Information in August 2026 as the Illinois state record for diameter, volume and weight, surpassing the previous record of 4.75 inches set at Minooka in 2015.
Before the storms developed, the Storm Prediction Center had issued a rare Level 4 out of 5 (Moderate) risk for severe weather over the area, a Tornado Watch was in effect more than two hours before the Kankakee-Roselawn tornado began, and Tornado Warnings preceded each confirmed tornado.
Source: National Weather Service
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国国家气象局芝加哥办公室发布的2026年3月10日强对流天气事件汇总图，含 Kankakee 至 Roselawn EF3级龙卷风路径与州纪录6.6英寸冰雹说明。美国国家气象局，公共领域。 / Photo: Event summary graphic for the March 10, 2026 severe weather outbreak, showing the Kankakee-to-Roselawn EF3 tornado track and the record 6.6-inch hailstone. National Weather Service Chicago, public domain.
