EF1 tornado, Cheney to Urbana, Iowa, June 30, 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 30, 2014

Touchdown

2:27 PM CDT (19:27 UTC)

Lifted

2:28 PM CDT (19:28 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Benton County

Touchdown point

42.226, -91.913

Lift-off point

42.222, -91.907

Record number

1406301327-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Widespread tree damage along County Home Road north of Robins
• Garage collapsed. Trees downed.

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

A strong cold front pushed into a very warm unstable air mass as a significant upper level storm system tracked into the northern Great Lakes on June 29-30, 2014. A major severe weather and flash flood event unfolded across the area. This event resulted in the direct deaths of 2 people and direct injuries to 7 others. Three weak tornadoes, widespread damaging winds of 60 to 80 mph, and life-threatening flash flooding due to 4 to 6 inches of rainfall was reported. Two of the tornadoes were in northeast Iowa while another tornado was spotted in northwest Illinois. Law enforcement reported a business building destroyed by high winds from a severe thunderstorm in Fairfax, Iowa. One person was killed and another injured due to the collapsed structure. A severe thunderstorm packing 80 mph winds blew a tarp on top of several people trying to cover the infield at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Three people suffered concussions while another person had a dislocated shoulder. In North Liberty, Iowa a tree fell on a person who was then transported to a local hospital. Severe flash flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa resulted in the drowning death of a teenage boy with another boy injured. They were swept into a storm sewer and were found a mile away in a lake.

A tornado developed on the leading edge of a rapidly advancing and intensifying squall line. Witnesses described seeing a funnel cloud and debris as the tornado approached. The tornado tracked through a neighborhood outside Urbana, unroofing a home, destroying 2 other garages, and causing less damage to about 9 homes.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:17 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:05 UTC and running to 22:13 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. The outlook in force was issued at 16:33 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 Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 129 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:29 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

45 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.