EF1 tornado, Euclid to Woodbine Muni Arpt, Iowa, April 12, 2022

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

April 12, 2022

Touchdown

8:08 PM CDT (01:08 UTC)

Lifted

8:18 PM CDT (01:18 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

9.6 miles (15.4 km)

Path width

140 yards (128 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

41.535, -95.857

Lift-off point

41.634, -95.730

Record number

2204121908-01

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

• Trunk looks like there may have been some rotting.
• Photo and video showed a strong downburst that included an intermittent gustnado feature with surface rotation that was not connected to cloud base rotation. The feature was highly visible and documented at this approximate location.
• Tree fell on a truck and buried a skid loader.
• Broken windows, gutter against house, hole in siding.

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

A deepening midlevel trough over the central Rockies advected north an unstable airmass into Nebraska and Iowa. Storms initiated to the northeast of the triple point leading to two tornadoes and numerous hail and strong wind gusts.

This tornado started southeast of Missouri Valley along the north end of an area of downburst wind damage. The tornado caused tree damage, destroyed a few barns and sheds, and minor home damage.

This is the second EF1 tornado that formed southeast of Woodbine and was on the ground for approximately 2.3 miles. Most damage was to trees at the start of the tornado but near the end of the track it destroyed a shed and caused damage to other farm structures. Wind estimate was 90 mph.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:57 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:46 UTC and running to 03:00 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, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 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.

Omaha/Eppley (OMA), 32 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 56 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:04 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 2022 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

27 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.