NOAA National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

The first section contains radar and satellite imagery of the thunderstorm which produced the Williamson County tornado.  The first two radar images were taken at 3:00 and 3:10 p.m. CDT respectively from the St. Louis WSR-57.  The second two images are enlarged copies of the first two images for easier viewing.  The final radar image is a loop of the third and fourth images.  The strongest storm in the center of the image is the storm that produced the first reported tornado touchdown west-northwest of Carterville, Illinois at 3:05 p.m. CDT.  Below the radar images are satellite pictures from 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. CDT respectively.  All these images are from the files of Dennis McCarthy, Regional Director of NOAA's National Weather Service, Central Region Headquarters.

This section contains impressive photographs of the actual tornado, shown as it moved east along Illinois Route 13 toward Marion.  The left three pictures were shot from the southern portion of Herrin, Illinois, looking south-southeast toward Route 13.  They were provided by Bill May, Herrin businessman and resident, and member of A.R.E.S. (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) when these pictures were taken.  The picture on the right is a close-up shot of the tornado, looking southeast toward Marion from the Illinois Route 13 exit of Interstate 57.  While the identity of the person who took this picture is unknown, Don Fisher, Marion businessman and resident, now has the ownership rights to this photograph, and gave the National Weather Service permission to use this picture.

The final section contains excerpts from the official May 1982 Storm Data report related to the Williamson County tornado.  This report was compiled by the NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office in St. Louis, and published by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.  Credits are contained in the captions underneath the photos.