F0 tornado, Tama, Iowa, June 26, 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 26, 2002

Touchdown

4:14 PM CDT (21:14 UTC)

Path length

0.0 miles (0.0 km)

Path width

20 yards (18 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Tama County

Touchdown point

41.970, -92.670

Lift-off point

41.970, -92.670

Record number

120

A weak cold front moved southeast across Iowa during the afternoon of the 26th. The airmass was quite capped and thunderstorm development was limited. CAPE values by mid to late afternoon reached 3000 to 3500 J/kg just ahead of the front. Surface temperatures topped out around 90, with dew point readings in the low to mid 70s. Thunderstorms erupted just ahead of the front, but the line of storms was scattered to broken at best. For the most part, the storms produced hail around an inch in diameter. There were two reports of golf ball size hail from one cell as it moved through the Mitchellville area of Polk County. There were reports of high wind from a few of the cells in southwest Iowa. Trees were blown down by 60 MPH winds west of Lenox. The scattered line of thunderstorms produced winds of 60 to 70 MPH. The greatest damage reported came from Union County in the city of Kent. High winds damaged part of the front of a brick building and tore off a large barn door. Most of the other wind damage was limited to downed trees and power lines. One tornado touched down briefly in Tama County. The tornado reportedly only touched the ground and caused no damage.

Brief spinup tornado

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

12 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:02 UTC, 12 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 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. The outlook in force was issued at 21:41 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 Des Moines radar (KDMX), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:12 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

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

2 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.