Hail and Damaging Wind in Iowa, April 19, 2000

The same system mentioned in the prior morning report continued to intensify and move east during the day. A broad dry slot developed to the southeast of the system and moved into southwest and central Iowa during the day. The dry slot moved into the state during the morning and by the afternoon the surface dry slow moved into Iowa. Dew points ahead of the dryline were in the low to mid 60s. Following the passage of the dryline, dew points fell into the low to mid 30s. The atmosphere was capped until near sunset, keeping strong convection from firing up. During the early evening hours the dryline lit up with a strong line of thunderstorms. Even though the storms were quite strong, most only produced marble size hail. Enough hail fell to cover the ground in many places. One of the storms became severe over southeast Black Hawk County. The storm dropped hail up to tennis ball size for five minutes in La Porte City. There was considerable hail along the line of storms extending from near Waterloo, southwest into south central Iowa. Most of the hail was one half inch or less in diameter, but there was enough in many areas to cover the ground. Nickle size hail fell in Mahaska County south of Oskaloosa from one of the stronger storms. Most of the storms did not produce much in the way of wind. One of the storms did produce severe winds of around 65 MPH in Ringgold County of south central Iowa. Damage was done to the roof of a barn east of Mt. Ayr.