Home / Iowa / Pocahontas
EF0 tornado in Pocahontas County, Iowa
Tornado May 13, 2023 · Pocahontas County, Iowa
NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Calhoun County → Pocahontas County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.
The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.
What the National Weather Service wrote
Tornado developed east of Pomeroy and moved north from Calhoun into Pocahontas county. Upon entering Pocahontas county, the tornado produced some damage to grain bins and an outbuilding. The remainder of the path was over open cropland.
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 Blanden (42.5598, -94.6398).
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 1090079. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.
Tornadoes near your address
See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.
We couldn’t get your location. Check that location access is allowed for this site, or type an address.