EF2 Tornado — Clarke, Iowa

2024-04-26 · near Osceola, Clarke, Iowa

Event narrative

The emergency manager provided several reports of damage along the path of this tornado. The tornado began just southeast of the Osceola Rest Area along Interstate 35 and travelled northeast through the town of Osceola. EF2 damage was done just southwest of town where a roof was removed from a house along 225th Avenue. There was mainly EF0 to EF1 damage through Osceola from tree damage and limited roof damage to homes in town. The tornado emerged from the northeast side of Osceola and continued northeast through rural Clarke County. The tornado dissipated near Lilac Street after impacting one last farmstead.

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 → (41.0043, -93.7908)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1170098. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.