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EF0 tornado in Marion County, Iowa

Tornado May 13, 2023 · Marion County, Iowa

EF0
Rating
1.1 mi
Whole path
40 yd
Path width
$2K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 40 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This tornado entered into Marion county from Warren county. The tornado was captured on video by several storm chasers. Some minor tree damage occurred with this tornado as it remained in rural Marion county.

The wider storm

Convection percolated along a warm front across the area through the morning. By afternoon, storms re-strengthened as as daytime heating helped enhance instability. Despite good instability with MLCAPE over nearing 2000 J/kg, lapse rates were modest and speed shear was weak. Despite this, directional shear was good and when combined with instability for brief stretching, allowed for a number of weak and short-lived tornadoes to develop. While 13 tornadoes occurred, they were confined to two small areas in Iowa where storms trained, resulting in several storms over the same locations. In addition, the training storms made for pockets of heavy rain with three to four inches or more of rain. This did result in flash flooding in Pocahontas County with impacts to homes and businesses.

Began near Pleasantville (41.3849, -93.3282).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

13 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1090049. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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