EF1 tornado, Pleasant Vly to Le Claire, Iowa, November 11, 2015

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

November 11, 2015

Touchdown

6:36 PM CST (00:36 UTC)

Lifted

6:41 PM CST (00:41 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Scott County

Touchdown point

41.582, -90.382

Lift-off point

41.600, -90.343

Record number

1511111836-01

27 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 109 mph.

• South side porch blown in on house.

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

A strong low pressure system lifted northeast across Iowa in the late afternoon and early evening hours. A fast moving line of thunderstorms, some severe raced northeast at 50 mph to over 60 mph. Numerous reports of damaging winds of 60 mph or greater were reported. There were 4 confirmed EF-1 Tornadoes with the system. Isolated reports of hail up to three quarters of an inch in diameter were reported.

A Tornado developed on the Mississippi River and tracked northeast into LeClaire. Damage observed was primarily to trees. Several homes had roof and siding damage. The roof of one home was lifted off and flipped over onto a neighboring home. The path length of the tornado was 2.4 miles with a maximum path width of 100 yards.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:21 UTC and running to 01:07 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:06 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.

Quad Cities (DVN), 19 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 18 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:37 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 2015 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

22 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.