Tornadoes · United States · Iowa · 2016
EF0 tornado, West Okoboji, Iowa, June 14, 2016
This EF0 tornado ran 0.4 miles across Dickinson County on June 14, 2016, touching down at 2:22 PM CDT and reaching 25 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- June 14, 2016
- Touchdown
- 2:22 PM CDT (19:22 UTC)
- Lifted
- 2:23 PM CDT (19:23 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.4 miles (0.6 km)
- Path width
- 25 yards (23 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $1,000
- County
- Dickinson County
- Touchdown point
- 43.350, -95.320
- Lift-off point
- 43.354, -95.316
- Record number
- 1606141322-01
What the Weather Service recorded
Thunderstorms produced a brief tornado and several reports of damaging winds in northwest Iowa during the afternoon of June 14th. The thunderstorms also produced heavy rain, which caused flash flooding at Spirit Lake.
A brief tornado damaged a small shed.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 17:46 UTC and running to 21:24 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:46 UTC | 21:24 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | FSD |
| 18:00 UTC | 21:25 UTC | Flash Flood Watch | FSD |
| 19:11 UTC | 19:45 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | FSD |
| 19:23 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FSD |
| 19:30 UTC | 20:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | FSD |
| 19:42 UTC | 21:45 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | FSD |
| 19:48 UTC | 20:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FSD |
| 21:49 UTC | 16:44 UTC | Flood Warning | FSD |
| 00:00 UTC | 14:12 UTC | Flood Warning | FSD |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:31 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 air that afternoon
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.
Minneapolis, MN (KMPX), 12:00Z
7.4 hours before the tornado, 216 km from the path. June 14, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 7 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -188 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 566 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 8 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 9 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 99 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 116 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.2 K/km
The radar
The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 117 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:21 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19:18 UTC | TSTM WND GST 50 | 7 S Lake Park | Dickinson, IA | . |
| 19:22 UTC | TORNADO | 7 S Lake Park | Dickinson, IA | TORNADO ON THE GROUND. |
| 19:24 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | 4 Wnw Terril | Dickinson, IA | . |
| 19:27 UTC | TSTM WND GST 70 | 3 Sse Lake Park | Dickinson, IA | TREE LIMBS BROKEN OFF. |
| 19:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Lake Park | Dickinson, IA | TWO GRAIN BINS DESTROYED, AND A LIGHT POLES LEANING. |
| 19:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 2 Ene Lake Park | Dickinson, IA | DAMAGE TO A MOBILE HOME. |
| 19:30 UTC | TSTM WND GST 63 | Spencer | Clay, IA | . |
| 19:36 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Arnolds Park | Dickinson, IA | SEVERAL TREES DOWN . |
| 19:44 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Milford | Dickinson, IA | WIDESPREAD TREE DAMAGE AND POWER LINES DOWN. |
| 19:45 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.63 | 3 Sw Spencer | Clay, IA | 30 MINUTE RAINFALL TOTAL. |
| 19:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Spirit Lake | Dickinson, IA | ROOF BLOWN OFF MOBILE HOME AND POWER LINES DOWN. |
| 20:11 UTC | TSTM WND GST 73 | 2 Sw Estherville | Emmet, IA | GUST 1 MINUTE PRIOR TO 60 MPH AS WELL. |
| 20:30 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.77 | Linn Grove | Buena Vista, IA | 1 HOUR RAINFALL TOTAL. |
| 20:50 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Spirit Lake | Dickinson, IA | STREET FLOODING AROUND TOWN. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of June 14, 2016
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 14 | 1:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Pipestone, MN | 3.8 | 20 | |||
| June 14 | 2:42 PM CDT | EF0 | Day, SD | 1.7 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 3:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Day, SD | 2.0 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 3:34 PM CDT | EF0 | Blue Earth, MN | 0.2 | 25 | |||
| June 14 | 4:05 PM CDT | EF0 | Le Sueur, MN | 2.2 | 25 | |||
| June 14 | 4:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Roberts, SD | 5.4 | 15 | |||
| June 14 | 4:28 PM CDT | EF0 | Rice, MN | 0.3 | 25 | |||
| June 14 | 4:33 PM CDT | EF0 | Blue Earth, MN | 2.1 | 20 | |||
| June 14 | 5:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Big Stone, MN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 5:16 PM CDT | EF0 | Benton, IA | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 5:26 PM CDT | EF0 | Big Stone, MN | 0.8 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 5:50 PM CDT | EF0 | Traverse, MN | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| June 14 | 7:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Stark, IL | 0.1 | 10 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.