Tornado Warning Issued for Christian and Macon Counties in Illinois
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on July 18, 2026, 5 weeks ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Lincoln IL has issued a Tornado Warning for northeastern Christian County and southern Macon County until 6:00 PM CDT on June 17, 2026.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Tornado Warning
- Affected area
- Central Illinois
- Issued
- July 18, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Lincoln IL
Tornado warnings are short-window notices for the named area. The issuing office is the authority on whether the warning remains active or has been replaced.
Record status: historical. It was issued 5 weeks ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Central Illinois.
Alert Details
Tornado Warning issued by NWS Lincoln IL. Effective from 4:54 PM CDT June 17, 2026 until 6:00 PM CDT June 17, 2026. Alert type code: TOW. Severity: Extreme. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Observed.
Affected Areas
Northeastern Christian County in central Illinois and southern Macon County in central Illinois. Locations in the path include Mount Auburn, Niantic, Harristown, Decatur, Mount Zion, Long Creek, Decatur Airport, Dalton City, Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park & Memorial, and Spitler Woods State Natural Area. Also includes Interstate 72 between mile markers 125 and 139.
What You Should Do
TAKE COVER NOW! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris.
Expected Conditions
At 4:54 PM CDT, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Mechanicsburg, or 17 miles east of Springfield, moving east at 35 mph. Hazard includes tornado and baseball size hail (2.75 inches). Source: Radar indicated rotation.
Timeline
Alert effective 4:54 PM CDT June 17, 2026. Expires and ends at 6:00 PM CDT June 17, 2026.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,262 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to July 18, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this NWS weather alert.