EF1 tornado, Kent, Iowa, April 17, 2025

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

April 17, 2025

Touchdown

10:21 PM CDT (03:21 UTC)

Lifted

10:28 PM CDT (03:28 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.9 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$46,000

County

Union County

Touchdown point

40.914, -94.448

Lift-off point

40.930, -94.369

Record number

2504172121-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 98 mph.

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

Warm air advection increased across the area through the day with a warm front draped across northern Iowa by the afternoon. Meanwhile a cold front was approaching Iowa from the northwest. Storms developed in the early evening in far southwest Iowa, moving across southern Iowa through late evening and overnight. Initial storms were surface based with CAPE exceeding 2000 J/kg and sweeping low level curvature in hodographs. Rotating updrafts supported hail growth with initial surface based storms resulting in a tornado in Union County. Storms became elevated overnight but remained strong, fueled by a strong 70+ knot low level jet. As storms in southern Iowa tapered off overnight additional storms developed along the boundary there. These storms became quite strong, producing golf ball to baseball sized hail from around 2 AM and lasting until after 5 AM.

The tornado developed in southwest Union county and tracked through rural portions of the county. Four properties reported damage, ranging from damage to outbuildings to shingle damage to a home.

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 tornado watch, issued at 01:06 UTC and running to 04:17 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 00:34 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.

Creston (CSQ), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Des Moines radar (KDMX), 107 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:18 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 2025 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.