EF0 tornado, Eldora, Iowa, June 20, 2018

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

June 20, 2018

Touchdown

3:27 PM CDT (20:27 UTC)

Lifted

3:28 PM CDT (20:28 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Hardin County

Touchdown point

42.344, -93.051

Lift-off point

42.347, -93.048

Record number

1806201427-01

Without even looking at supporting variables, the setup for impactful weather could be gleaned from the general setup. A weak surface pressure system was slowly working its way across Iowa, situating its relevant boundaries primarily across southwest and southern Iowa. Within the warm sector, dew points were high in the low to mid 70s, especially considering afternoon air temperatures were only into the low 80s. Even north of the warm front and west of the cold front, the air mass was ripe for at least the potential for sustained rainfall with surface dew points in the upper 60s to low 70s. ||Looking at the details, both heavy rainfall and tornadoes appeared in play. First, within the warm sector, MUCAPE values were within the 1000 to 2000+ J/kg neighborhood, lifted condensation levels were under 750 m, 0-3 km CAPE was around or in excess of 100 J/kg, effective shear was mediocre away form the fronts, and surface vorticity was present. North of and wrapping around the surface low, any support for severe weather was understandably lackluster given its location, but had the potential for sustained periods of moderate to heavy rainfall given the humid environment and slow moving surface low. ||Given the setup, there were concerns for flooding issues, especially given previous rainfalls in the month and moist soils, and severe weather including funnel clouds and weak tornadoes. What transpired was heavy rainfall and flooding in and around northwest Iowa and then multiple funnel cloud and weak tornado reports in central and southeast Iowa. In total, 4 weak tornadoes were confirmed.

Tornado from picture posted on social media. Brief path across agricultural land east southeast of Eldora.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:16 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:05 UTC and running to 00:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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), 88 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:24 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 2018 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.