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EF0 tornado in Sac County, Iowa

Tornado August 5, 2023 · Sac County, Iowa

EF0

Rating

1.2 mi

Whole path

35 yd

Path width

$50K

Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 35 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

Report of damage from emergency manager later identified as a tornado path using high resolution satellite imagery. The tornado impacted a outbuilding and tossed debris northward into an agricultural field with EF0 damage.

The wider storm

Showers and thunderstorms percolated through much of the day along a stationary boundary over northwest Iowa. By evening a more robust shortwave moved across the area, accompanied by 30 kts of shear and 1500-2000 J/kg of MLCAPE. This allowed for storms to strengthen across west central Iowa with gusty winds producing some minor damage to trees and out buildings. Additionally, due to the orientation of the shear, a few weak tornadoes developed and were discovered using high resolution satellite imagery.

Began near Auburn (42.2139, -94.8951).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EFU Carroll County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1124845. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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