EF0 tornado, Galva, Iowa, December 15, 2021

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

December 15, 2021

Touchdown

4:58 PM CST (22:58 UTC)

Lifted

5:00 PM CST (23:00 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.7 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$75,000

County

Ida County

Touchdown point

42.526, -95.435

Lift-off point

42.562, -95.405

Record number

2112151658-01

33 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FSD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Possible centerline through golf course.
• Failure of doors likely led to further damage to walls and roofing on south facing storage garage.
• Dryer unit blown off top of elevator toward the SE. Dented bins, sections of damaged roofing at grain elevator.
• Several trees were uprooted and large branches down. Photo courtesy of Buena Vista County EM.

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

An unprecedented storm system lifted across the central Plains from December 15 into the early hours of December 16. Kinematic fields were at the top of the climatological distributions, leading to extreme wind shear in the lowest levels. Ahead of the system, record high temperatures with surface dew point values into the 50s and lower 60s surged toward northwest Iowa and resulted in instability not typically found in December.||A serial derecho developed across Nebraska and Kansas during the early afternoon and raced to the northeast toward Iowa and Minnesota, with widespread damaging wind and a few tornadoes. The first Storm Prediction Center moderate risk, as well as severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings during December, were issued for the Sioux Falls warning area. There was even remaining snow cover in parts of northwest Iowa north of Highway 18 and into southwest Minnesota as the severe storms evolved during the afternoon and evening hours.||As the cold front swung through the area behind the convective line, 60 to 75 mph winds aloft were mixed to the surface and resulted in a few synoptic wind gusts up to hurricane force. Some light wintry precipitation also fell during the transition toward the much colder air, which led to flash freezing as temperatures fell as much as 40 degrees during the overnight hours.

The tornado developed 2 miles north-northwest of Galva, one-half mile southwest of the intersection of 120th Street and Landmark Avenue. The tornado tracked northeast to a farmstead on the northeast corner of the intersection, where a hoop barn was destroyed and the roof partially removed from a residence. The tornado exited Ida County 4 miles north of Galva just east of Marshal Avenue at 1700CST. The tornado clipped the far southeast corner of Cherokee County, then entered Buena Vista County at 1701CST, where the tornado lifted one mile southwest of Alta at 1706CST. The tornado was rated EF0 in Ida County, EFU in Cherokee County, and EF1 in Buena Vista County. The average path width in Ida County was 50 yards and the maximum estimated wind speed was 85 mph. Property damage costs are a rough estimate.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS FSD issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:31 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:23 UTC and running to 23:39 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:28 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.

Storm Lake (SLB), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 157 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:54 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 2021 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

124 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 125 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.