EF1 tornado, Palsville to Alexander, Iowa, June 16, 2014

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

June 16, 2014

Touchdown

6:52 PM CDT (23:52 UTC)

Lifted

6:56 PM CDT (23:56 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.1 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$27,000

Crop damage

$3,000

Counties

Wright and Franklin counties

Touchdown point

42.875, -93.505

Lift-off point

42.851, -93.467

Record number

1406161752-01

11 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• Photo Courtesy of the Franklin County Emergency Management.
• Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Emergency Management.
• Several sheet metal panels missing from the east side of a farm shed. Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Emergency Management.
• Loss of one sheet metal panel on the south side of the barn. Barn shifted on foundation and northern garage door on the west end of the barn blown in. Photo courtesy of the Franklin County Emergency Management.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A very dynamic weather pattern was in place over over Iowa. A warm front lifted north into the state. Temperatures warmed in the 80s with dew point readings in the upper 60s to mid 70s. The atmosphere became very unstable with 3000 to 4000 J/kg of CAPE and downdraft CAPE of 1000 to 1500 J/kg. The shear was strong with 50 to 60 kts available. The freezing level was quite high, between 13,000 and 14,000 feet wtih CAPE in the -10 to -30 C layer of the atmosphere between 700 and 900 J/kg. The precipitable water value was a between 1.5 and 1.8 inches. The LCL was relatively low, around 1000 meters. Thunderstorms moved into western Iowa out of Nebraska. As the afternoon and evening progressed, the thunderstorm complex evolved into one that was more outflow dominated. The system raced southeast and produced high winds across the Des Moines metro area and to the east and south. Winds of 60 to 80 MPH caused considerable tree and power line damage. Power outages were reported by 27,000 customers in Des Moines at the height of the storm. As the storms moved through the heart of Des Moines, a homeless individual died when a large tree branch fell on him at a homeless settlement along the banks of the Raccoon River east of Fluer Blvd.

Tornado spun up within a larger wind damage field in far eastern Wright county producing tree damage at a farmstead before moving into Franklin county.

This tornado moved in from Wright county and produce its most intense damage as it entered the county when it hit a farmstead. It then continued to the southeast remaining mostly in open farm fields.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:41 UTC and running to 05:00 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:59 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.

Clarion (CAV), 26 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), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:50 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 2014 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

35 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.