Tornadoes · United States · Iowa · 1998

F0 tornado, Palo to Cedar Rapids Airpark, Iowa, May 28, 1998

From Palo to Cedar Rapids Airpark, this F0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Linn County on May 28, 1998, touching down at 7:12 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mph

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F0
Date
May 28, 1998
Touchdown
7:12 PM CDT (00:12 UTC)
Path length
0.1 miles (0.2 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Linn County
Touchdown point
42.080, -91.750
Lift-off point
42.080, -91.750
Record number
1255

What the Weather Service recorded

Severe thunderstorms blasted across Northeast Iowa causing widespread damage to trees, buildings and power lines. Most damage was due to strong wind gusts from 50 to 100 mph. The storms also produced three brief tornados in Linn and Dubuque counties. Near Onslow a semi-tractor rig was toppled by high winds. In Clinton county the Red Cross provided emergency shelter to a family from Lost Nation after a large tree fell through a window of their mobile home. In Vinton a fallen utility pole and electric transformer smashed a car. The city of Preston suffered heavy tree damage with many homes sustaining minor to moderate damage. West of Preston lightning struck a home and caused about $10,000 to $12,000 worth of smoke damage. In the Cedar Rapids area about 9,400 customers were without electrical service after power lines were downed by falling tree limbs. Near the Kirkwood Community College softball fields high winds picked up aluminum bleachers and pushed them through a backstop.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

8 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:04 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:55 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
23:56 UTC01:00 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDVN
00:04 UTC00:55 UTCTornado WarningDVN
04:14 UTC05:05 UTCSevere Thunderstorm WarningDVN

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:50 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z

0.2 hours before the tornado, 115 km from the path. May 29, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 1998-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2333 joules per kilogram, CIN -26, lifted condensation level 1689 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Davenport, at 00:00Z on 1998-05-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 30 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 22 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2333 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-26 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2764 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1689 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
22 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
5 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
30 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
4 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
8.3 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z

11.8 hours after it, 115 km from the path. May 29, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 1998-05-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 121 joules per kilogram, CIN -201, lifted condensation level 1308 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Davenport, at 12:00Z on 1998-05-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 179 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 39 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
121 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-201 J/kg
Surface CAPE
42 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1308 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
39 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
23 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
179 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
209 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Cedar Rapids (CID), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
22:52 UTC8567210° 11 kt1010.5
23:52 UTC8268220° 8 kt1011.2TS
00:14 UTC80.666.2310° 33 kt451014.2+FC TS SQ

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of May 28, 1998

14 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
May 283:25 PM CDTF0Buena Vista, IA1.050
May 283:26 PM CDTF0Buena Vista, IA0.150
May 283:40 PM CDTF0Pocahontas, IA0.230
May 286:40 PM CDTF2Cedar, NE8.02501
May 286:58 PM CDTF0Dixon, NE0.150
May 287:05 PM CDTF0Linn, IA0.130
May 287:10 PM CDTF0Dixon, NE8.0100
May 287:32 PM CDTF0Dubuque, IA0.130
May 288:05 PM CDTF0Woodbury, IA0.150
May 288:23 PM CDTF0Stephenson, IL0.130
May 288:46 PM CDTF0Stephenson, IL0.130$1,000
May 288:56 PM CDTF0Calhoun, IA0.330
May 289:20 PM CDTF0Crawford, IA0.130
May 2810:36 PM CDTF0Carroll, IA0.230

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.