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F2 tornado in Wayne County, Iowa

Tornado April 23, 1961 · Wayne County, Iowa

Rating

68.6 mi

Whole path

600 yd

Path width

Injuries

$5.0M

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Decatur County → Wayne County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 600 yards (0.34 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What F2 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F2 meant considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted; the scale paired it with winds of 113–157 mph, figures later judged too high, especially toward the top of the scale, and revised downward in the Enhanced Fujita scale. Ratings then, as now, came from the damage.

NOAA’s online database has no written narrative for tornadoes before 1996 — just the numbers above, transcribed from the original storm logs. Written accounts from this era do exist in NOAA’s monthly Storm Data publications (scanned, back to 1959).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 10015914. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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