Unrated tornado, Fletcher Chapel, Iowa, July 16, 2019

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 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. Unratedthis tornado

   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

Unrated

Date

July 16, 2019

Touchdown

3:38 PM CDT (20:38 UTC)

Lifted

3:43 PM CDT (20:43 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.4 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Crop damage

$500

County

Cass County

Touchdown point

41.312, -94.971

Lift-off point

41.292, -94.964

Record number

1907161438-01

A juicy atmosphere with a lack of organizational support (effective bulk shear) made for a messy convective environment across portions of the state on the 16th. During the morning hours convection from central and eastern Nebraska drifted into western Iowa, producing heavy rainfall. Another round of developed across northwest Iowa during the morning and rolled across northern Iowa and southern Minnesota, producing a lone severe wind gust. Later in the afternoon, storms were able to initiate along old outflow boundaries and were able to produce localized heavy rainfall, a weak tornado, and a other funnel cloud reports. ||While support was lackluster, there were indications for the possibility of a funnel cloud or weak tornado during the afternoon with supportive SBCAPE in excess of 2000 J/kg, weak boundaries in the area, and most importantly very supportive 0-3km cape values in excess of 150 J/kg for low level stretching.

Weak tornado captured on camera/video. Remained over open land and was rated EF-Unknown as no damage indicators were impacted.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:45 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), 114 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:37 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 2019 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.