Tornadoes · United States · Iowa · 2025
Unrated tornado, Crab Town, Iowa, July 10, 2025
This Unrated tornado ran 0.1 miles across Jackson County on July 10, 2025, touching down at 6:44 PM CDT and reaching 10 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
Unratedthis tornado
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.
The record
- Rating
- Unrated
- Date
- July 10, 2025
- Touchdown
- 6:44 PM CDT (23:44 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:45 PM CDT (23:45 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 10 yards (9 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Jackson County
- Touchdown point
- 42.200, -90.840
- Lift-off point
- 42.200, -90.840
- Record number
- 2507101744-01
The damage survey
1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DVN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.
- Very brief EFU tornado based on storm chaser video footage. Looked to be multiple vortex in nature.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
During the evening of July 10th, a line of thunderstorms developed and moved across eastern Iowa. These storms produced isolated large hail and damaging wind gusts in Johnson and Clinton Counties. Based on a video, an EF-U tornado occurred in Jackson county. These storms also produced heavy rain, mainly along and north of interstate 80. Rainfall amounts of 2 to 4.50 inches were reported across the area. This rain led to flash flooding in Clinton, Dubuque, Davenport near the Mississippi River and Sabula.
Based on storm chaser video, a brief multiple vortex tornado occurred. This tornado is rated as an EF-U.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
35 minutes of warning. NWS DVN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:09 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:09 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | DVN |
| 23:49 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | DVN |
| 00:16 UTC | 00:41 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | DVN |
| 00:17 UTC | 06:00 UTC | Flood Watch | DVN |
| 00:42 UTC | 05:01 UTC | Flash Flood Warning | DVN |
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 forecast that day
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 19:59 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 air that afternoon
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.
Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z
11.7 hours before the tornado, 70 km from the path. July 10, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 562 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -90 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 268 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1007 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 14 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 13 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 132 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 210 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.0 K/km
Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z
0.3 hours after it, 70 km from the path. July 11, 2025.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2407 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -3 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3767 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1108 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 50 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 15 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 91 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 194 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.8
- Supercell composite
- 12.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 7.7 K/km
The radar
The Quad Cities radar (KDVN), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:44 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:44 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Ne Canton | Jackson, IA | Corrects previous tornado report from 1 NW Ironhills. Video of a brief touchdown, no damage observed. |
| 23:44 UTC | TORNADO | 1 Nw Ironhills | Jackson, IA | Video of a brief touchdown, no damage observed. |
| 23:49 UTC | RAIN 1.75 | 2 Wnw Dubuque | Dubuque, IA | One hour total. |
| 00:16 UTC | RAIN 1.45 | Lore | Dubuque, IA | |
| 00:20 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 1 Ene Dubuque | Dubuque, IA | Reports of street flooding through parts of the downtown area, with a car stranded in water near the 17th and Locust Street interchange. Creeks in the area are also near bankful. Waters are slowly starting to recede as t |
| 00:22 UTC | RAIN 2.95 | 1 Nw Dubuque | Dubuque, IA | |
| 00:30 UTC | RAIN 2.07 | 1 W Dubuque | Dubuque, IA | rainfall total from 6-730p. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 10, 2025
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 10 | 5:14 PM EDT | EF0 | Jasper, SC | 0.6 | 60 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.