EF1 tornado, Irena to Tingley, Missouri, April 26, 2024

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 26, 2024

Touchdown

7:23 PM CDT (00:23 UTC)

Lifted

7:41 PM CDT (00:41 UTC)

On the ground

18 minutes

Path length

8.5 miles (13.6 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$200,000

Counties

Worth and Ringgold counties

Touchdown point

40.559, -94.406

Lift-off point

40.660, -94.313

Record number

2404261823-01

27 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DMX and NWS EAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 127 mph.

• Brick building at park destroyed
• Entry for campers not trees
• Tornado crossing with tree damage

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

On the afternoon hours of April 26th, supercells produced 4 brief EF-0 tornadoes in Bates and Henry Counties.

Multiple rounds of storms moved across the area on April 26th. The first round was fueled by broad thermal lift and passed across Iowa through the morning with a few of these storms producing small hail but all remained sub severe. The area dried out and cleared out behind this round, allowing for a few hours of destabilization. By afternoon the warm sector was sufficiently unstable between the warm front and a dryline. Robust convection developed along that dryline in the afternoon in western Nebraska, moving into Iowa in the early evening. With sufficient instability, the increasing low level jet, and SRH exceeding 300 m2/s2, large hail and tornadoes occurred with storms across western to central Iowa. In all, 28 tornadoes occurred in Iowa with 18 within the NWS Des Moines area.

NWS Des Moines storm survey found evidence of a EF-0 tornado beginning just northwest of Irena, tracking to the north northeast before crossing the Iowa border near US 169 and continuing into WFO Des Moines' area.

This tornado crossed into Ringgold County, Iowa from Worth County in Missouri shortly after developing. The tornado widened to around 300 yards as it travelled northeast remaining to the southeast of both Redding and Delphos. The tornado interacted with several different farmsteads producing mainly EF1 damage to houses and outbuildings. There was ample tree damage along the path as well. The tornado eventually lifted to the east of Delphos.

This tornado developed in south central Ringgold County several miles east of Redding and travelled to the northeast. The tornado remained in the rural rolling landscape producing damage to trees and a couple of farmsteads. Most of the damage to houses was to siding and removal of portions of roofs. The tornado passed just southeast of Mt. Ayr Airport and dissipated to a few miles northeast of Mt. Ayr.

This tornado began about 4 miles east of Mt. Ayr north of State Highway 2. The tornado remained in rural portions of central and northeast Ringgold county producing damage to mainly trees and power poles. A few farmsteads were also impacted with damage to homes and outbuildings. A hog confinement was also hit southwest of Beaconsfield. The tornado passed just west of Beaconsfield and dissipated just east of 330th Avenue north of Beaconsfield.

This tornado developed in rural Ringgold County between Mt. Ayr and Diagonal. The tornado moved northeast with some damage to outbuildings and trees. The tornado crossed Highway 169 southwest of Tingley before moving through the center of town. Up to EF2 damage occurred with Tingley with an upper floor removed from one house and the destruction of some outside walls of a brick building in the downtown area. The tornado impacted a couple more farmsteads with EF0 to EF1 damage before dissipating to the northeast of Tingley.

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 20:49 UTC and running to 01:48 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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.

Lamoni (LWD), 39 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), 136 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:20 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 MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are

77 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 78 of them

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.