EF0 tornado, Ringgold County, Iowa, May 18, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

May 18, 2026

Touchdown

6:54 PM CDT (23:54 UTC)

Lifted

7:01 PM CDT (00:01 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

6.1 miles (9.8 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Ringgold County

Touchdown point

40.681, -94.395

Lift-off point

40.715, -94.299

Highest wind the damage implies

80 mph

Surveyed by

NWS DMX

Survey last edited

May 20, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

Damage along path consistent of weak tornado. SRV Rotational couplet evident at this time. Photo evidence of tornado provided by Ringgold County Emergency Management.

Written by NWS DMX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

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

• SRV Rotational couplet had weakened by this time. BV depicted 53 knots of inbound. No video/picture evidence of tornado here. Damage to barn was on south facing opening of lean-to consistent with inbound BV.

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

23 minutes of warning. NWS DMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:31 UTC, 23 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:49 UTC and running to 03:00 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 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:05 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.

The Des Moines radar (KDMX), 126 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:51 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 2026 tornado in IowaEvery tornado in Iowa since 1950Warnings in force in Iowa nowThe forecast where you are

19 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.