EF0 tornado, Maurice to Sioux Center Muni Ar, Iowa, April 16, 2024

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

April 16, 2024

Touchdown

2:30 PM CDT (19:30 UTC)

Lifted

2:31 PM CDT (19:31 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Sioux County

Touchdown point

43.113, -96.167

Lift-off point

43.116, -96.164

Record number

2404161330-01

10 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 105 mph.

• Collapsed small barn. Some tin tossed into the nearby field. Dropped wind speed due to condition of barn and lack of other nearby damage.
• Three uprooted pine trees.
• Very brief touchdown noted in an open field by emergency manager. No known damage.
• Outbuilding destroyed. Pine trees uprooted.

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

A negatively tilted upper level wave lifted across the Central Plains on April 16th, with timing of the dry slot ahead of the feature during the afternoon hours. With peak destabilization and development of storms near the triple point in the early to mid afternoon, a mix of hail, damaging winds, and several brief tornadoes occurred.

Emergency manager witnessed a very brief touchdown in an open field. The storm produced no visible damage as to determine a rating.

A brief tornado spun up just south of 380th Street on the outskirts of Sioux Center. The tornado quickly crossed 380th Street as it moved north-northeast and uprooted several large pine trees along a tree line. The tornado then struck a farmstead where it collapsed a barn and tossed tin into a neighboring field. The tornado shifted track to a more northeast direction and then crossed open fields until it lifted near the railroad tracks around one-half mile south of 370th Street. The maximum estimated wind speed was 85 mph and the average path width was 25 yards.

A brief tornado spun up just south of 370th Street around one-half mile east of U.S. Highway 75 where it uprooted three large pine trees. The tornado moved northeast for about another minute before breaking several large branches at a residence before it lifted. The maximum estimated wind speed was 80 mph and the average path width was 25 yards.

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

32 minutes of warning. NWS FSD issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:58 UTC, 32 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:25 UTC and running to 21:50 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:40 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.

Sioux County (SXK), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Sioux Falls radar (KFSD), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:28 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 2024 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

30 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.