EF0 tornado, Hazleton to Aurora, Iowa, July 14, 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

July 14, 2021

Touchdown

6:43 PM CDT (23:43 UTC)

Lifted

6:53 PM CDT (23:53 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

3.2 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$275,000

Crop damage

$5,000

Counties

Buchanan and Fayette counties

Touchdown point

42.640, -91.950

Lift-off point

42.670, -91.908

Record number

2107141743-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ARX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

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

Severe thunderstorms developed ahead of an approaching cold front during the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, July 14. Some of the storms produced damaging winds and several tornadoes, most of which only briefly touched down. Brief torrential rainfall was also observed with the stronger storm cells. The areas that were hit hardest were in Delaware and Jones counties in IA, where a total of 5 tornadoes occurred. An additional 7 tornadoes touched down in eastern IA, with no visible damage reported.

Two tornadoes skipped across portions of northeast Iowa during the late afternoon of July 14th. The first tornado impacted areas between Rockford (Floyd County) and Rudd (Floyd County) and to the east before dissipating northwest of Charles City (Floyd County). The most extensive damage occurred to a hog containment building near the end of its path. This tornado was rated an EF-1. The second tornado caused damage in Oelwein (Fayette County) and locations southwest of the city. This tornado ripped an air handler unit off a restaurant and caused damage at the high school football stadium. This tornado was rated an EF-0. The Governor of Iowa issued a disaster proclamation that included Fayette County.

Brief tornado touchdown in Buchanan County, which crossed into Fayette County at 17:44 LST, and then into Oelwein.

An EF0 tornado developed southwest of Oelwein and moved northeast into the city before dissipating. The tornado damaged the ticket booth, fencing and ripped metal siding off of stands at the high school football field. The tornado also blew out the sides of a greenhouse, tipped over the FFA's chicken coop and lifted but did not remove the roof on the main portion of the high school. At a restaurant, an air handler unit was ripped off and windows broken. Some crop and tree damage was noted southwest of the city as well.

Brief touchdown in a field with no visible damage.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:25 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:36 UTC and running to 01:55 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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 La Crosse radar (KARX), 143 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:41 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

25 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.