EF0 tornado, Wales to Elliott, Iowa, May 24, 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

May 24, 2024

Touchdown

3:22 AM CDT (08:22 UTC)

Lifted

3:23 AM CDT (08:23 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

41.131, -95.100

Lift-off point

41.144, -95.087

Record number

2405240222-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS OAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 74 mph.

• Trees topped. Narrow damage swath through farmstead
• Camper and garage outbuilding blown over as well as tree damage.
• Lean-to building destroyed
• Microwave dish on tower was knocked out of alignment

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

Upper-air analysis showed a trough over the northern Rockies the evening of May 23rd. That night, this trough ejected out into the central and northern Great Plains. At the surface, a low-pressure developed in western South Dakota. Extending south and southwest of this surface low into Colorado was a cold front. A secondary low-pressure center was noted in northwestern Kansas where the surface cold front intersected a dry line that extended south into western Texas. |Shortly after midnight, a line of severe thunderstorms along this cold front moved into the OAX CWA. From 05 UTC through 10 UTC, this line of storms brought widespread severe wind gusts up to 110 miles per hour and 17 spin-up tornadoes across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. These storms continued to be severe and tornadic through the morning of the 24th, later being classified as a derecho. |Troughing over the western CONUS continued to bring southwesterly flow aloft the region even behind this first trough. By the evening of the 25th, another shortwave trough had amplified over the Great Basin and had shifted over the Rocky Mountains. Ahead of this disturbance, a low-pressure developed in northwest Kansas, with a warm front extending east-southeast across northern and eastern Kansas. The evening of the 25th, scattered strong to severe thunderstorms developed across this frontal zone in northern Kansas and generally tracked to the east-northeast. As such, scattered thunderstorms moved into southeast Nebraska after 9 PM CDT. While largely remaining below severe limits, severe straight-line winds were observed along the south and east side of the Omaha metro as a thunderstorm tracked from western Otoe into eastern Pottawattamie County. It was estimated wind gusts reached as high as 70 miles per hour with this storm, with power outages being reported due to the winds.

This brief spin-up tornado damaged outbuildings at a farmstead and numerous trees in far northwestern Montgomery County. The peak winds in this tornado were estimated to be at 74 miles per hour. The peak track width and average track width for this tornado were both 60 yards.

This brief spin-up tornado touched down near the intersection of 120th Street and O Avenues where it destroyed an outbuilding. The tornado then traveled northeast where it rolled over a camper and tore the roof off of a garage outbuilding. Peak winds in this tornado were estimated to be at 74 miles per hour. The track width of this tornado was 30 yards.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 06:33 UTC and running to 10:22 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:52 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.

Red Oak (RDK), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Omaha radar (KOAX), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:24 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

42 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.