Thunderstorm Wind — Butler, Iowa

2025-08-15 · near Aredale, Butler, Iowa

Event narrative

Tree down on a power line. Time estimated by radar.

Wider weather episode

An embedded shortwave rounded the top of thermal ridging across Iowa. Storms across Nebraska and South Dakota earlier in the day moved into Iowa by afternoon, moving along the instability gradient across northern Iowa with over 4000 J/kg of MPCAPE to the south. An elevated mixed layer prevented more robust storm development initially, but eventually increasing cold pool strength pulled those stronger gusts to the surface and storms continued to push east. Severe gusts were common along the line of storms with several reports of tree and power line damage.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (42.8300, -93.0000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1297849. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.