EF0 tornado, Stratford to Ellsworth, 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

4:05 PM CDT (21:05 UTC)

Lifted

4:23 PM CDT (21:23 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

8.8 miles (14.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2,000

Crop damage

$3,000

County

Hamilton County

Touchdown point

42.277, -93.913

Lift-off point

42.313, -93.747

Record number

2107141505-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

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

A surface low pressure system was centered over Kansas and Nebraska with attendant warm front draped across north central Iowa. This was bisected by an outflow boundary from morning convection across western Iowa. As morning activity exited the are the atmosphere quickly recovered steep low and mid level lapse rates exceeded 8 C/km with 0-6 km shear over 40 knots. Near the remnant outflow boundary 0-1 km SRH exceeded 150 m2/s2. Storms developed along this boundary and moved east along the warm front, spawning a number of tornadoes across the state. In fact, this is in the top 5 for tornadoes occurring in a single day for the state of Iowa since reliable records began in the 1980s. By evening convection congealed into an MCS, bringing heavy rain to portions of the state. A line of training storms set up north of the Des Moines metro, resulting in localized flash flooding.

Tornado developed just northeast of Stratford and moved east northeast for duration of the event. Tornado remained almost entirely in agricultural fields. It did encounter a farmstead near the end of the path and produced some tree damage. As this tornado began to rope out, another tornado developed in close proximity and continued for some distance. Track was enhanced using hi-resolution satellite imagery.

This tornado developed northeast of Stanhope and tracked across mostly open agricultural fields. It did interact with two farmsteads early in it's track, producing EF1 damage to trees. The tornado lifted before reaching Interstate 35 north of Ellsworth.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:04 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:35 UTC and running to 00:50 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 Des Moines radar (KDMX), 63 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:02 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.