EF0 tornado, Sheldon Muni Arpt, Iowa, May 31, 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 31, 2024

Touchdown

4:14 PM CDT (21:14 UTC)

Lifted

4:17 PM CDT (21:17 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.9 miles (1.5 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

O'Brien County

Touchdown point

43.182, -95.816

Lift-off point

43.195, -95.824

Record number

2405311514-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FSD, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• North side of roof peeled off business. Multiple RVs flipped and damaged.
• Loss of roof panels on southside of building. Image courtesy of Obrien County EM.
• Roof panels peeled off western face of building. Image courtesy of Obrien County EM.
• Approximate end point based on debris path. Image courtesy of Obrien County EM.

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

A surface boundary stalled during the afternoon across northwest Iowa. With fairly narrow instability profiles but enough moisture to produce a very low lifting condensation level (LCL) along with a concentration of near-surface vorticity, updrafts produced a couple of bring non-supercell spin ups.

A tornado formed on the far eastern edge of Sheldon near the Crossroads Pavilion. The tornado tracked north-northwest for around one-quarter mile and crossed U.S. Highway 18 at the intersection of 34th Avenue. North of Highway 18, the tornado impacted an RV dealership where the roof was partially peeled off a machine shed and several RVs were flipped or destroyed. Several roof panels of two other buildings were also peeled off. Debris was strewn across an open field to the northwest over the next one-third mile before the tornado crossed Nest Avenue shortly before it lifted. The maximum estimated wind speed was 85 mph and the average path width was 50 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.

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 20:41 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.

Sheldon (SHL), 3 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), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:11 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

2 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.