EF1 tornado, Waukon, Iowa, July 23, 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

July 23, 2022

Touchdown

11:44 PM CDT (04:44 UTC)

Lifted

11:46 PM CDT (04:46 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

90 yards (82 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$60,000

County

Allamakee County

Touchdown point

43.263, -91.529

Lift-off point

43.245, -91.512

Record number

2207232244-01

8 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 88 mph.

• Lots of tree damage in city park
• Mixture of large branches broken and trunks snapped as seen from aerial video.
• Panels over an open-walled enclosure popped off per aerial video.

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

A line of storms moved across northeast Iowa during the evening of July 23rd. These storms produced an EF1 tornado west of Waukon (Allamakee County) that damaged a farm and trees. Strong thunderstorm winds caused extensive damage to several buildings at the community college in Calmar (Winneshiek County) and flipped over a couple vehicles. The public school athletic fields in Calmar were also heavily damaged. The press box was blown off the high school football stands, metal light poles were downed at the softball field, and metal bleachers were thrown over a fence and onto the field. In Waukon, the roofs were damaged on numerous buildings and several trees and power lines were blown down. The Governor of Iowa issued a disaster proclamation for Allamakee, Clayton and Winneshiek Counties.

A brief EF1 tornado touched down southwest of Waukon. The tornado damaged the roofs on farm outbuildings along with some trees.

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.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 01:55 UTC and running to 06:51 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:47 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), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:43 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

7 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.