Two older residents were killed and at least five other people were injured in a tornado that ripped through a rural county in southern Illinois and destroyed several buildings on Sunday evening, authorities said on Monday.
Fatalities in Mount Vernon
The fatalities occurred in Mount Vernon, according to Sheriff Jeff Bullard of Jefferson County. He identified the victims as Sarita Kimble, 62, and Delores Shelton, 83, who were inside separate structures leveled by the tornado. The sheriff's office said in a Facebook post that the tornado touched down at about 5pm on Sunday, destroying at least three mobile homes. None of the five people injured sustained life-threatening injuries.
Damage and Warnings
A photograph posted on social media showed damage in Mount Vernon after the storm passed through, and a video showed a funnel cloud spinning over the city. AccuWeather reported that 117 tornado warnings were issued by the National Weather Service (NWS), and 40 tornado reports were filed with the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) on Sunday afternoon and evening, mostly between Peoria, Illinois, and Jasper, Indiana. The weather forecaster said that Illinois had already seen more tornado reports in 2026 – a total of 164 up to and including last Thursday – than any other year since records began.
Earlier Fatality in Kansas
Sunday's fatalities in Illinois followed the death early on Saturday of a man in Sedgwick, Kansas. According to the National Weather Service and local news outlet KWCH, 64-year-old Ricky Schale, a father of five, lost his life when his family's mobile home was torn from its anchor and blown apart.
Broader Tornado Outbreak
Potent tornadoes are increasingly striking in concentrated, volatile outbreaks amid the climate crisis, which is primarily driven by carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Updated data published on Monday from the SPC, a department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that 1,031 tornadoes had been reported nationwide in 2026, with 40 of them highly destructive EF2 severity or greater.
“The dynamics this year have favored Illinois, with storms staying to the north of Texas and Oklahoma,” Peyton Simmers, an AccuWeather meteorologist, said. “Additionally, the drought in the western US sent a lot of warm air aloft across Texas and Oklahoma, which has helped to limit the overall severe weather across the south.”
