F0 tornado, Pleasantville, Iowa, May 8, 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

May 8, 2002

Touchdown

8:15 PM CDT (01:15 UTC)

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

41.380, -93.270

Lift-off point

41.380, -93.270

Record number

54

Low pressure over north central Kansas at sunrise on the 8th lifted northeast during the day. The low tracked northeast across west central, into northeast Iowa by the evening of the 8th. A warm front extending east from the low lifted north across the state rapidly during the morning hours. Dew points warmed into the mid 60s ahead of the low in the warm sector as surface temperatures warmed into the low 80s. The airmass became unstable by the afternoon hours as the heating of the day eliminated the cap. Thunderstorms erupted along the cold front by the late afternoon. The event was mainly of wind and hail. Several reports of winds of 60 to as much as 75 MPH were received over central, south central, and southeast Iowa. The hail was generally around an inch in diameter, though golf ball size hail was reported with one of the storms as it moved over Searsboro, in Poweshiek County. One tornado was reported in central Iowa in Marion County. The tornado was a brief spin-up gustnado developed near the town of Pleasantville. It touched down in an open area and caused very little damage.

Brief spin up gustnado in open area.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:01 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:45 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. The outlook in force was issued at 01:15 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 Des Moines radar (KDMX), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:15 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

20 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.