EF1 Tornado — Ringgold, Iowa

2024-04-26 · near Mt Ayr Muni Arpt, Ringgold, Iowa

Event narrative

This tornado began about 4 miles east of Mt. Ayr north of State Highway 2. The tornado remained in rural portions of central and northeast Ringgold county producing damage to mainly trees and power poles. A few farmsteads were also impacted with damage to homes and outbuildings. A hog confinement was also hit southwest of Beaconsfield. The tornado passed just west of Beaconsfield and dissipated just east of 330th Avenue north of Beaconsfield.

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 → (40.7300, -94.1375)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1170061. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.