Hail, Palo Alto
- When
- May 20, 5:40 PM CST
- Where
- Palo Alto County
- Measured
- 1 in hail
- Coordinates
- 43.080, -94.900
Tornado and Hail in Iowa, May 20, 1959
1 hail, 1 tornado, as filed by the National Weather Service.
Where it happened
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
- Tornadoes
- Tropical storms and surge
- Floods
- Wind
- Hail
- Winter weather
- Heat and drought
- Cold
- Fire, smoke and dust
- Marine and coastal
- Other
The toll
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 5
- Property damage
- $250,000
- Crop damage
- None recorded
- Events
- 2
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
Event by event
1 hail, 1 tornado. Local standard time, as filed.
Tornado, Wayne
- When
- May 20, 7:00 PM CST
- Where
- Wayne County
- Rating
- F4
- Path length
- 17.2 mi
- Path width
- 440 yd
- Injuries
- 5 direct, 0 indirect
- Property damage
- $250,000
- Coordinates
- 40.700, -93.150
What these are
- Hail
- Hail three-quarters of an inch or larger, or smaller hail that caused damage, filed with the largest stone measured.
- Tornado
- A violently rotating column of air in contact with the ground and extending from a thunderstorm, filed with its path, width and Fujita or Enhanced Fujita rating from the damage survey.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
The same day elsewhere
More
Every storm in Iowa in 1959Every state in 1959This day in weather historyThe tornado archive for Iowa, 1959
Sources
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 10019314, 10019315.