EF2 Tornado — Polk, Iowa

2022-03-05 · near Avon, Polk, Iowa

Event narrative

This tornado passed from Warren county into Polk county near the intersection of Highway 69 and County Line Road. The tornado crossed E Pine Avenue removing the roof of a house and then clipped the north edge of Avon producing EF2 damage to a couple of houses. The tornado then crossed the Des Moines River and impacted the Woodland Hills neighborhood damaging muliple structures. The damage continued to the northeast into less inhabited areas of eastern Polk county, however the tornado remained strong with EF2 damage at several locations along its path. The tornado crossed University Avenue near its intersection with NE 112th Street and then exited the county into Jasper county.

Wider weather episode

On March 5, 2022 a total of 15 tornadoes occurred across the state of Iowa as a warm front lifted across the area. Supercells initially developed across southwest Iowa in the vicinity of the triple point of the surface low with strong, rotating updrafts. Longevity was initially lacking with the storms, producing funnel clouds, brief tornadoes, and hail in southwest Iowa. As the cells moved northeast and matured, larger hail began to fall with golf ball sized hail falling in Adams county and baseball sized hail into Adair county. Following this period of large hail the storms produced a tornado which would remain on the ground for just over 70 miles, carving a path across central Iowa from southwest of Winterset to just northeast of Newton. The tornado peaked in Winterset, Iowa, producing EF-4 damage with wind speeds estimated near 170 mph. The tornado continued across the southern portion of the Des Moines metro area and to Newton. This is the furthest north EF-4 tornado in the CONUS this early in the year on record, the first EF-4 tornado in Iowa since October 4, 2013 which occurred in Woodbury and Cherokee Counties, and is the second longest tornado in Iowa since 1980, behind the longest occurring on June 7, 1984 at a length of 117 miles across southern Iowa. As the storm skimmed the southern Des Moines metro, cells across south central became tornadic, producing several destructive tornadoes including an EF-3 tornado in Chariton, Iowa. This heartbreaking day resulted in seven fatalities, six in Winterset and one in Chariton, making it the deadliest tornado outbreak in Iowa since 2008. At 15 tornadoes, this is also one of the earliest outbreaks of this magnitude to occur so early in the season.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.5115, -93.5767)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1007096. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.