Champaign County was under a Tornado Warning at 11:55 a.m. Monday, April 27, 2026, as residents were told to take shelter in the lowest level of a building until 12:15 p.m. By 12:15 p.m., that warning had subsided, but a Severe Thunderstorm Warning remained in place for Champaign, Urbana and Danville until 12:30 p.m. CDT.
By 3:00 p.m., the severe weather threat in Champaign County had ended a few hours earlier, even as much of Central Illinois was still under Tornado Watch #160 at 4:15 p.m. and the watch was extended. The National Weather Service in Central Illinois said severe storms would continue to develop in the southern half of central Illinois and in southern Illinois, urging people to stay alert and take cover if warnings approached their location.
The pace picked up again by 6:30 p.m., when a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Champaign County and multiple Tornado Warnings were posted along the Illinois-Missouri border and northeast of Springfield. Between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., the weather service issued another Tornado Warning for Champaign County as radar showed high winds and a possibly rain-wrapped rotation.
The evening also brought reports of heavy tree damage in DeWitt County and increasing power outages from Ameren, underscoring how far the system had spread across the region. By 8:00 p.m., the storm threat was diminishing, closing out a long day of warnings that moved from one county to the next and kept much of central Illinois on alert.
