F1 tornado, New Market, Iowa, July 26, 2002

1. F040 to 72 mph

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

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   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.

Rating

F1

Date

July 26, 2002

Touchdown

9:29 PM CDT (02:29 UTC)

Path length

7.0 miles (11.3 km)

Path width

60 yards (55 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Taylor County

Touchdown point

40.680, -94.830

Lift-off point

40.670, -94.680

Record number

184

A strong warm front was located across northern Kansas into northern Missouri. The airmass was quite unstable with dew point temperatures well into the 70s. Temperatures were in the 100 to 110 degree range south of the front, while to the north of it readings were only in the 80s. Thunderstorms fired by the early evening hours just to the north of the front. Within a few hours a fairly large MCS had formed over Iowa. Most of the thunderstorms were not severe, only producing brief gusty winds, small hail, and heavy rainfall. One cell became a supercell over southwest Iowa. Golf ball size hail fell in Taylor County. During the peak intensity of the storm a tornado touched down southeast of New Market and had an intermittent track to about 2 miles east of Bedford. For the most part the tornado tracked through open country causing only minor damage. One farmstead was damaged by the tornado east of Bedford.

Touched down in open country with intermittent track. Did some damage to a house east of Bedford.

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

31 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:58 UTC, 31 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:11 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 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2002 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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