EF1 tornado, Floyd Crossing to Colwell, Iowa, May 27, 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 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

May 27, 2019

Touchdown

12:23 PM CDT (17:23 UTC)

Lifted

12:37 PM CDT (17:37 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

9.8 miles (15.8 km)

Path width

105 yards (96 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$625,000

County

Floyd County

Touchdown point

43.049, -92.737

Lift-off point

43.173, -92.642

Record number

1905271123-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 109 mph.

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

As an area of low pressure moved across the Upper Midwest, thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of Memorial Day (May 27th) across portions of northeast Iowa. These storms quickly became severe and produced tornadoes across Floyd, Chickasaw and Howard Counties. The first tornado developed near Charles City (Floyd County) and was on the ground for about 7 miles, extensively damaging some buildings at the Floyd County fairgrounds along damaging three houses severe enough to make them inhabitable. Another tornado moved across rural portions of Howard County for 12 miles and damaged a wind turbine and cattle barns. Two other weaker tornadoes also touched down across northwest Chickasaw County and northern Howard County very close to the Minnesota state line.

A tornado touched down west of Charles City and moved north-northeast before dissipating northwest of Colwell. The tornado did extensive damage to seven buildings at the Floyd County fairgrounds. At a fertilizer plant across the road from the fairgrounds a roof was partially peeled off from one building while the main building was left leaning after having an entire side ripped off. Three homes along the path were damaged severely enough to be declared inhabitable.

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 16:22 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.

Charles City (CCY), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The La Crosse radar (KARX), 145 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:24 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 2019 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

62 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 63 of them

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.