F3 tornado in Howard and Winneshiek County, Iowa

Tornado July 19, 1994 · Howard and Winneshiek County, Iowa

Rating

23.0 mi

Path length

150 yd

Path width

$500K

Damage as recorded

$50K

Crop damage

What F3 means. This tornado was rated on Fujita’s original scale, used until 2007. F3 meant severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned; the scale paired it with winds of 158–206 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.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Intermittent track, mostly F1 damage

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 10324535. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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