EF0 tornado, Sewal, Iowa, November 11, 2015

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

November 11, 2015

Touchdown

2:57 PM CST (20:57 UTC)

Lifted

2:58 PM CST (20:58 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

15 yards (14 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

40.644, -93.312

Lift-off point

40.652, -93.309

Record number

1511111457-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0.

• The brief, narrow tornado was recorded by multiple storm chasers.

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

Widespread wind and tornado damage occurred in central Iowa as a result of a low pressure system that raced across the state. Originally, the low pressure center developed in eastern/southeastern Colorado late Tuesday/early Wednesday and proceeded to quickly move east-northeast across Kansas before taking a more northeasterly turn as it approached southwest Iowa. Throughout the event, MUCAPE values were generally in the neighborhood of 500 J/kg. Shear values were supportive with 0-1km values and 0-6km values around 35kts and 85-90kts respectively. SRH values were also very supportive with 0-1km and 0-3km values around 350 m2/s2 and 500 m2/s2 respectively. With the speed of the system and the ample support, resulting storms were fast moving, in excess of 40mph, and of the low topped supercell variety before transitioning into a linear system as the event progressed.

The brief, narrow tornado was recorded by multiple storm chasers.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:44 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:27 UTC and running to 22:28 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.

The Des Moines radar (KDMX), 125 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:59 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.