EF0 tornado, Magnolia to Pisgah, Iowa, April 26, 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 26, 2024

Touchdown

4:59 PM CDT (21:59 UTC)

Lifted

5:04 PM CDT (22:04 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Harrison County

Touchdown point

41.800, -95.890

Lift-off point

41.840, -95.870

Record number

2404261559-01

38 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.

• Based on new poles. Western edge of vortex
• Based on new poles. Eastern edge of vortex
• Top of pine tree. Metal paneling.
• A large camper and horse trailer were rolled, tumbled a significant distance, and destroyed. Trees had large branches snapped. A new porch was removed from a home.

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

On the morning of April 26th, a potent negatively-tilted shortwave trough ejected out into the central Plains. Upper air analysis shows a jet streak on the downstream side of this trough with substantial divergence aloft over Nebraska. At the surface, morning cloud cover and drizzle across much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa quickly gave way to partly cloud skies as a warm front moved north through the area, just after noon. At the same time, thunderstorms initiated along a pacific front/dryline in south-central Nebraska. One supercell produced several tornadoes from south-central Nebraska into Boone County, resulting in an EF-2 tornado just west of Cedar Rapids. A second round of supercells initiated in Jefferson and Saline counties. These long-track supercells produced the worst tornado outbreak the Omaha WFO has seen in 10 years. 5 EF-3 tornadoes were surveyed, with several of these tornadoes just shy of an EF-4 rating. One of these EF-3 tornadoes impacted the northeast side of Lincoln, Nebraska where 70 people were reported trapped in a manufacturing plant that collapsed as the tornado passed. Another long-track EF-3 tornado hit portions of Elkhorn, Bennington and Blair, Nebraska. Eppley Airfield was hit by the third EF-3 tornado of the day, doing damage to aircraft hangars on the southeast side of the airport before hitting homes in far western Pottawattamie County. The last two EF-3 tornadoes of the day both impacted portions of Pottawattamie County. While one remained primarily in rural areas in the central part of the county, the final EF-3 of the day hit the town of Minden, Iowa head-on, resulting in 1 fatality and 3 injuries. This was the only fatality of the entire event. This tornado continued into Shelby County, narrowly missing the towns of Tenant and Harlan. A total of 24 tornadoes were confirmed across both Nebraska and Iowa portions of the Omaha CWA. The strongest tornado was the EF-3 that impacted Elkhorn and Blair, with peak estimated wind speeds at 165 miles per hour.

A tornado developed in woodlands about 4 NNW of Magnolia, IA. Road maintenance workers noted damage to the trees south of 174th Trail Road on the south side of Steer Creek. The tornado crossed 174th Trail breaking power poles and damaging a farmstead. The tornado moved generally north moving across agricultural fields and skirting the eastern periphery of the Loess Hills State Forest west of Juneau road, damaging a house and trees. The tornado veered to the NNE, crossing 154th Trail Road, where it moved across an impassable area of Loess Hills State Forest west of Kelsey Avenue. It crossed just south of the intersection of Kelsey Avenue and Easton Trail Road, causing damage to a farmstead and power poles. It continued to move NNE, snapping trunks and large branches of trees and destroying barns and outbuildings along 110th Street, as well as along Laredo Avenue north of 112th Trail Road. The tornado began to weaken as it approached the Harrison-Monona county line, producing only very minor damage as it moved into Monona County east of Peach Avenue. The peak estimated winds in this tornado for this segment of its track were 110 miles per hour. The maximum width achieved by the tornado was 766 yards, with an average width during this segment estimated at 450 yards.

This tornado was based on an eyewitness observation of two simultaneous tornadoes passing east and west of a farmstead. There was little damage observed with this tornado, with only minor tree damage being reported. The peak estimated winds in this tornado were 70 mph, with a peak width of 200 yards and an average width of 100 yards.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS OAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:22 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:53 UTC and running to 00:00 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 19:58 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.

Tekamah (TQE), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:59 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

77 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 78 of them

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.