The day was a two part event with the first coming in the morning hours across east central Iowa. There, a shor wave moved through the upper levels, enabling a few storms to initiate and produce heavy rainfall.
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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.
The episode as NWS DMX wrote it up.
The day was a two part event with the first coming in the morning hours across east central Iowa. There, a shor wave moved through the upper levels, enabling a few storms to initiate and produce heavy rainfall. Later in the day, an advancing cold front from Minnesota moved into the state, initiating storms across northern Iowa. While most storms were sub-severe, a few reports of damaging winds were reported north of Waterloo, along with sub-severe hail.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Des Moines, IA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jun 29, 11:11 PM CST, 2 hours 49 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Des Moines IA 1211 AM CDT Thu Jun 30 2016 .SHORT TERM.../Tonight/ Issued at 334 PM CDT Wed Jun 29 2016 The main forecast concern was focused on timing of precipitation, if any precipitation at all, across the forecast area. Very little to hang your hat on wrt to pops this evening and into the overnight hours. Latest visible satellite shows a decent clearing over the west-southwest portions of Iowa and destabilization continues over this location. Surface based CAPE has increased to around 1500-2000 J/kg and effective shear ranges from 30-40 knots over the west. Moisture availability remains an issue tonight with a good swath of dry air in place over Nebraska. There is some weak Theta-E advection riding the upper level ridge along the Missouri River Valley in western Iowa and may help spawn some storms over western Iowa this afternoon into the early evening. These will be mainly sunshine dependent. The better forcing resides in northern Missouri into far southern Iowa later tonight and possibly into the overnight hours and kept some slight pops going in this location. Otherwise, trended toward a drier forecast tonight into Thursday morning, especially over the northern two-thirds of the forecast area. Really no model handling current conditions or initialized very well for today and tonight's scenario as the 29.12z GFS, NAM and ECMWF are way overdone with QPF during the forecast period. Thus, utilized a blend of the hires models for precip trends with slightly more weight to the 29.12z NSSL WRF and 29.15z HopWRF. The experimental HRRR seems to be doing slightly better than the operational HRRR, but both still don't seem to have a good idea on convective trends through the evening. .LONG TERM.../Thursday through Wednesday/ Issued at 334 PM CDT Wed Jun 29 2016 Thunderstorm chances appear decent for Thursday as we have a cold front that will sink South through the forecast area during the day. However instability and shear are not anything spectacular. There is some decent convergence along the front and as a result enough forcing for scattered storms but severe storms seem unlikely. During peak heating we may see a marginally severe hail or wind report but that's about it. Friday looks beautiful as does Saturday for most people however as we see a surface high begin to shift east...return flow sets up across Southern and Western Iowa. This will bring in warmer and a bit more unstable air along with some moisture so isolated to scattered thunderstorms will again be possible across these areas through the weekend. Again the severe parameters look weak so not really looking for anything severe but models do indicate pockets of higher qpf and soundings also hint at higher pwats across the far South so some storms could produce heavy rain. Next week we will generally be in zonal flow so temperatures will moderate some and the best chance for rain doesnt' appear to be until Tuesday/Wednesday timeframe when a shortwave pushes across the central plains. Models differ in timing and placement at this point but there appears to be at least some threat for severe storms during this time frame. Confidence isn't high enough to include in the HWO since model consensus is poor but it will at least need watching. && .AVIATION.../For the 06Z TAFS through 06Z Thursday night/ Issued at 1205 AM CDT Thu Jun 30 2016 Primary concerns are convection and fog trends through the early morning hours, and then thunderstorm trends again later today. The only imminent threat for sites would be showers upstream of KDSM so VCSH wording there for several hours. Thunder is possible, but confidence not great enough to mention at the moment. Winds are currently light from the southeast with temp/dewpoint spreads continuing to shrink north so have continued MVFR fog mention. Precip chances increase north to south with approaching front Thursday but confidence at any particular location is not great enough for anything beyond VCSH. && .DMX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...None. && SHORT TERM...Podrazik LONG TERM...FAB AVIATION...Small
HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA 328 PM CDT WED JUN 29 2016 IAZ004>007-015>017-023>028-033>039-044>050-057>062-070>075- 081>086-092>097-302030- EMMET-KOSSUTH-WINNEBAGO-WORTH-PALO ALTO-HANCOCK-CERRO GORDO- POCAHONTAS-HUMBOLDT-WRIGHT-FRANKLIN-BUTLER-BREMER-SAC-CALHOUN- WEBSTER-HAMILTON-HARDIN-GRUNDY-BLACK HAWK-CRAWFORD-CARROLL-GREENE- BOONE-STORY-MARSHALL-TAMA-AUDUBON-GUTHRIE-DALLAS-POLK-JASPER- POWESHIEK-CASS-ADAIR-MADISON-WARREN-MARION-MAHASKA-ADAMS-UNION- CLARKE-LUCAS-MONROE-WAPELLO-TAYLOR-RINGGOLD-DECATUR-WAYNE- APPANOOSE-DAVIS- 328 PM CDT WED JUN 29 2016 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL IOWA. .DAY ONE...THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT ISOLATED TO WIDELY SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS MAINLY SOUTH OF INTERSTATE 80 ARE EXPECTED. THE THREAT OF SEVERE STORMS IS LOW. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY THUNDERSTORMS ARE FORECAST AGAIN ON THURSDAY WITH A LOW THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER. THUNDERSTORM CHANCES WILL THEN RETURN TO SOUTHERN IOWA OVER THE WEEKEND AND THE REST OF THE AREA NEXT TUESDAY. THE PROBABILITY OF SEVERE WEATHER APPEARS LOW OVER THE WEEKEND BUT LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL MAY BE POSSIBLE. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... SPOTTER ACTIVATION IS NOT ANTICIPATED. FAB
The Omaha radar (KOAX), 132 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 08:00 UTC.
2 heavy rain, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. Local standard time, as filed.
Trained spotter reported heavy rainfall of 2.60 inches, and still raining at the time of the report.
Carroll Municipal Airport recorded heavy rainfall of 3.47 inches through 7am. Beginning time radar estimated.
Public reported uprooted/downed trees near Denver. Report via social media, relayed by KWWL.
Public reported copious amounts of small pea to penny sized hail. Report relayed via KWWL. Time radar estimated.
Emergency Manager reported several instances of tree limbs down and crop damage near Denver at 175th and Highway 63, 180th and Joplin, and 1N and 2S in Bremer County.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Iowa in 2016Every state in 2016This day in weather historyWarnings in Iowa, June 2016
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: 633865, 633872, 633867, 633866, 633869.