EF1 Tornado — Crawford, Iowa

2024-04-26 · near Astor, Crawford, Iowa

Event narrative

This tornado formed near Defiance in Shelby County and moved into Crawford County southwest of Manilla. The tornado moved northeast through southern and eastern Crawford county impacting several farmsteads along the way. Most of the damage was to trees although a few outbuildings were severely damaged as well. The tornado lifted several miles due south of Vail.

Wider weather episode

Multiple rounds of storms moved across the area on April 26th. The first round was fueled by broad thermal lift and passed across Iowa through the morning with a few of these storms producing small hail but all remained sub severe. The area dried out and cleared out behind this round, allowing for a few hours of destabilization. By afternoon the warm sector was sufficiently unstable between the warm front and a dryline. Robust convection developed along that dryline in the afternoon in western Nebraska, moving into Iowa in the early evening. With sufficient instability, the increasing low level jet, and SRH exceeding 300 m2/s2, large hail and tornadoes occurred with storms across western to central Iowa. In all, 28 tornadoes occurred in Iowa with 18 within the NWS Des Moines area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.8641, -95.2947)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1169961. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.