EF2 Tornado — Wayne, Iowa

2022-03-05 · near Humeston, Wayne, Iowa

Event narrative

The tornado continued into Wayne county from Decatur county. Once again, this tornado remained in mostly rural areas of the county, bypassing Humeston just to the north. Power poles snapped along J22 west of Humeston produced EF2 damage and there was damage to outbuildings just north of Humeston along Highway 65. However, the bulk of the path interacted with either empty cropland or woodland areas with numerous trees being toppled. The tornado passsed into Lucas county after crossing Watrous Road east of 70th Street.

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.

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Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1007107. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.