F0 tornado, Keota, Iowa, June 12, 2002

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.

Rating

F0

Date

June 12, 2002

Touchdown

6:25 PM CDT (23:25 UTC)

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

10 yards (9 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Keokuk County

Touchdown point

41.400, -92.000

Lift-off point

41.400, -92.000

Record number

747

A nearly stationary front, combined with abundant moisture and a strong upper level storm system to produce scattered strong to severe thunderstorms Wednesday evening. A few reports of hail to near quarter size and wind gusts of around 60 mph were received. Damage was confined mainly to trees and power lines. The thunderstorms also spawned two F0 tornadoes, one east of Washington and the other near Keota. The tornadoes were short lived and produced no damage or injuries. The thunderstorms continued through the late evening and into Thursday morning. During this time the threat shifted from hail, high wind and isolated tornadoes to very heavy rain and flash flooding, as the thunderstorms continuously developed over some of the same areas. Rainfall amounts of up to 3 to 4 inches were reported in portions of Southeast Iowa, an area which just 48 hours earlier received anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain. As a result, much of the heavy rain went into runoff resulting in fairly widespread flash flooding.

A brief tornado touched down northwest of Keota. The tornado dissipated at 190th Street and County Road G32. No reports of damage or injuries were received.

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

NWS Quad Cities, IA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Jun 12, 2:20 PM CDT, 4 hours 5 minutes earlier.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE QUAD CITIES IA IL
220 PM CDT WED JUN 12 2002

DIFFUSE SURFACE FRONT DIFFICULT TO DISCERN DUE TO NUMEROUS MESO
BOUNDARIES...BUT MAINLY INDICATED FROM NEAR CHI THROUGH NORTHERN
IA TO E CENTRAL NEB. MESO BOUNDARY INITIATING CELLS THIS AFTERNOON
CURVED FROM NE IL NEAR LAKE FRONT THROUGH MLI TO CID AT 18Z. AT
UPPER LEVELS...H85 MOISTURE RIDGE AXIS NOTED AT 12Z FROM W TX INTO
SE IA. STRONG H5 LOW CHURNED OVER SW ALBERTA WITH 90 KT H25 JET JUST
SOUTH FROM WY TO MI. FAVORABLE UPPER DIFFLUENCE...UPSTREAM MID LEVEL
FORCING...SLOW MOVING E-W FRONT...AND ABUNDANT LOW LEVEL MOISTURE
SETTING THE STAGE FOR SEVERE POTENTIAL THIS AFTERNOON AND
EVENING...THEN OVERNIGHT HEAVY RAIN AND FLOODING CONCERNS.

MODELS AGAIN HAVING DIFFICULTY HANDLING SURFACE FRONTS AND QPF
PLACEMENT. AVN WAS TOO FAR SOUTH WITH SURFACE FRONT AT 18Z...WITH
ETA PLACEMENT CLOSER TO REALITY. BOTH BRING STRONG MID LEVEL WAVE
CURRENTLY MOVING INTO SE NEB INTO EASTERN IA TOWARD 06Z WHICH
MATCHES WELL WITH NOWCAST TOOLS. THIS PUSHES SURFACE LOW PRESSURE
WAVE ALONG THE FRONT AND WITH STRONG UPPER DIVERGENCE AND HIGH
PRECIPITABLE WATER...HEAVY RAIN STRONG POSSIBILITY. AVN MAY BE
OVERDONE WITH HUGE QPF BULLSEYE OVER FAR W CENTRAL IL...BUT CANNOT
IGNORE. MOST VULNERABLE WILL BE AREAS MAINLY SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 34
WHERE 88D STP AMOUNTS EXCEEDED 3 INCHES LAST NIGHT.  AREAS FURTHER
NORTH NOT IN MUCH BETTER SHAPE WITH RAIN YESTERDAY AND RIVERS STILL
HIGH FROM LAST WEEKS EVENT...SO WILL ISSUE FLOOD WATCH FOR CWFA
ALONG AND SOUTH OF INTERSTATE 80 COORIDOR. BELIEVE CONVECTION SHOULD
GET GOING THIS EVENING WITH MCV CURRENTLY SPINNING INTO N CENTRAL MO
AND FAR SOUTHERN IA WITH REINFORCEMENT FROM STRONGER AFOREMENTIONED
MID LEVEL WAVE IN CENTRAL NEB.

ON THURSDAY WILL KEEP LOW SCATTERED POPS FOR SHOWERS WITH MUCH
COOLER TEMPERATURES THURSDAY THROUGH FRIDAY AS UPPER LOW PASSES JUST
TO NORTHEAST. AVN CONTINUES TO HINT AT SHOWERS FOR SATURDAY WITH
WEAK E-W TROUGH...BUT WILL LEAVE OUT FOR NOW DUE TO UNIMPRESSIVE
FORCING. MAIN MESSAGE WILL BE COOLER TEMPERATURES AND LOWER HUMIDITY
OVER WEEKEND.

MEDIUM RANGE MODELS IN AGREEMENT WITH WESTERN CONUS RIDGE BUILDING
EARLY NEXT WEEK WITH TROUGHING FROM GREAT LAKES AND NORTHEAST.
BIG DIFFERENCES WITH MRF ALONE IN CUTTING OFF ANOTHER H5 LOW OVER
LOWER MI...WHICH DIVES INTO OHIO RIVER VALLEY BY MID WEEK. LATEST
AVN EXT MORE IN LINE WITH WEAKER EASTERN TROUGH SHOWN BY ECMWF AND
UK. WITH SUCH BIG DISAGREEMENT...WILL CONTINUE CURRENT TRENDS OF
RAIN CHANCES MONDAY AND TUESDAY WITH SOME SORT OF UPPER NW FLOW AND
IMBEDDED WAVES...THEN DRY WEDNESDAY WITH UPPER RIDGE MOVING OVERHEAD.

COORDINATED WITH DSM AND ILX...THANKS.

.DVN...
IA...FLOOD WATCH TONIGHT FOR ALONG AND SOUTH OF I-80.
IL...FLOOD WATCH TONIGHT FOR ALONG AND SOUTH OF I-80.
MO...FLOOD WATCH TONIGHT.

DLS

In the hours before

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE QUAD CITIES IA IL
433 PM CDT WED JUN 12 2002

TIME(CDT)  .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE  ...EVENT/REMARKS...
           ....COUNTY LOCATION....

1215 PM    5 W COVINGTON             IA   TORNADO
06/12/02   LINN                           SPINNING DUST UNDER
                                          FUNNEL.  BRIEF
                                          TOUCHDOWN ALSO REPORTED
                                          BY PUBLIC. REPORTED BY
                                          LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL.

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.

Washington (AWG), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

8 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.