Alert archive / Iowa / Tornado Warnings in 1998

Tornado Warning 22, NWS Quad Cities, IA

May 15, 1998Muscatine County, Iowa

NWS Quad Cities, IA issued this tornado warning at May 15, 1998, 5:43 PM CDT for Muscatine County, Iowa. It was in force for 32 min. No storm report in the archive falls inside the area while it was in force.

The area

The counties it named.

The facts

Issued: May 15, 1998, 5:43 PM CDT (22:43 UTC)
Expired: May 15, 1998, 6:15 PM CDT
In force: 32 min
Issued by: NWS Quad Cities, IA
Area: Whole counties

County Muscatine County, IA

The radar

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 47 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 22:46 UTC, the scan nearest the moment this went out.

Open the radar archive at this moment

The archived warnings, watches and discussions in force at that minute are drawn over the scan, this one among them.

The watch it was issued in

The SPC watch in force over the same counties when this warning went out.

Issued	Product	Office	Lasted
May 15, 5:00 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	6 hr

The nearest sounding before it

Lincoln, IL (KILX), launched 12:00Z, 10.7 hours before the alert went out and 258 km from the middle of its area. This is the routine balloon launch nearest before it, the air the forecaster had in hand, not a measurement taken for the alert.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 1190 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -238 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 813 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 18 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 68 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: -0.0

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

As transmitted, in the capitals the NWS used until 2016.

336 
WFUS1 KMLI 152244 RRA
TORMLI
IAC139-152315-

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE QUAD CITIES IA IL
543 PM CDT FRI MAY 15 1998

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN QUAD CITIES IA HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
  WESTERN MUSCATINE COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL IOWA

* UNTIL 615 PM CDT

* AT 543 PM CDT... DOPPLER RADAR AND SPOTTER REPORTS INDICATED A
  TORNADO 11 MILES SOUTHEAST OF IOWA CITY OR 5 MILES WEST OF WEST
  LIBERTY MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.

* THE TORNADO IS EXPECTED TO BE NEAR...
  WEST LIBERTY                               AROUND 545 PM CDT

A TORNADO IS ON THE GROUND GO TO THE BASEMENT IF A BASEMENT IS
NOT AVAILABLE...GO TO A SMALL INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR

WEISSER

The office that day

Everything else NWS Quad Cities, IA issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 15, 4:14 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DVN	Keokuk	46 min
May 15, 4:20 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DVN	Jefferson	50 min
May 15, 4:34 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Keokuk	36 min
May 15, 4:42 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DVN	Washington	48 min
May 15, 4:48 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Jefferson	37 min
May 15, 4:53 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DVN	Iowa	32 min
May 15, 5:03 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Washington	47 min
May 15, 5:28 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Johnson	47 min
May 15, 5:39 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Cedar	51 min
May 15, 6:22 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Jones	48 min
May 15, 6:44 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Jackson	51 min
May 15, 6:49 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	DVN	Cedar	21 min

Nearby

Tornado Warnings in Iowa, 1998 Every tornado warning in 1998 Tornadoes in 1998

Sources

The product and its follow-ups from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center text; the sounding from the Mesonet's radiosonde archive; radar from the NEXRAD Level II archive.