F1 tornado, Melbourne, Iowa, August 26, 2004

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

August 26, 2004

Touchdown

8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

41.920, -93.100

Lift-off point

41.930, -93.050

Record number

1460

A very unstable airmass was located over Iowa on the 26th. Surface dew points rose into the mid to upper 70s along with surface temperatures near 90. Soundings indicated CAPE values around 5000 J/kg with lifted indices in the -9 C. range. The freezing level was relatively low, being a little over 12,000 feet. A steep lapse rate was in place with a 7 to 8 C. lapse rate between 850 and 500 mb. At the same time, a strong west to southwest jet in excess of 75 kts was in place over the central U.S. During the afternoon, a cold front dropped southeast into the state. Thunderstorms erupted during the late afternoon in advance of the cold front. The storms became severe very quickly and produced high winds and hail. There were a few tornadoes reported with the stronger storms. They touched down in open countryside and resulted in little damage. One tornado northwest of Maxwell in Story County tracked across the north end of a farmstead there. Several trees were downed and one window was blown out of the farm house. A tornado touched down in Marshall County south of Melbourne. The tornado may have actually been three separate tornadoes that developed and dissipated very rapidly. It was hard to distinguish if there were three, or if the damage path was produced by vortices rotating around the parent storm. There were three areas along the path of more noticeable damage. One was of F0 strength, the other two areas were F1 strength. The entire event took place in about 5 minutes. High winds and hail were widespread during the event. There was some very impressive hail reported. Very large hail of five and one half inches in diameter fell in Hancock County in the Kanawha area. Incredibly, three inch diameter hail fell in the same area about 30 minutes before the very large hail hit. The hail resulted in considerable vehicle and home damage in the area. There were reports of baseball size hail in Pocahontas County near Gilmore City. Reports from Sac County indicated two and one half inch diameter hail in the town of Odebolt. The hail did considerable damage in the city, including smashing out the windows in several homes and smashing car windshields. Most of the other hail reported around the state was golf ball and smaller size. Many of the storms produced high winds, resulting in a lot of tree and power line damage. Storms in central Iowa produced 60 to 75 MPH winds, resulting in many cars being blown off highways in central Iowa. Flash flooding occurred in Davis County as heavy rainfall of 3 to 4 inches fell on the already saturated county. This weather system was the third heavy rainfall to hit the county in as many days. County officials reported numerous roads closed to flowing water over the highways, even as sunrise approached.

Tornado had an intermittent track and may have infact been three tornadoes that developed in rapid succesion.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:29 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:18 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.

Marshalltown (MIW), 24 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Des Moines radar (KDMX), 58 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:40 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2004 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

14 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.