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EF1 tornado in Jefferson County, Iowa

Tornado June 17, 2026 · Jefferson County, Iowa

EF1

Rating

2.0 mi

Path length

50 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

A brief EF1 tornado, with peak winds of 90 mph, developed just south of Pekin, IA, impacting areas from Pekin Community Schools east-southeast towards Linby, IA. At Pekin Schools, softwood trees were snapped above the base in a narrow area just north of the football field. There were also portions of a metal roof peeled off of an outbuilding. The tornado blew down a chain link fence near the softball diamond, then damaged one of the softball dugouts and depositing the debris along the trees southeast of the softball diamond. The tornado then moved east-southeast towards Linby, where several broken tree branches and sheared trees were reported, along with a hardwood tree being uprooted.

The wider storm

A strong storm system for mid-June brought two rounds of thunderstorm on Wednesday June 17th. The strongest round of storms occurred during the morning hours that brough damaging winds (some significant), heavy rain, and two EF-1 tornadoes occurred in Iowa. One of these tornado was in Linby in Jefferson and the second touched down in far southeast Lee County and moved into Clark County Missouri and then into Warsaw Illinois.

Began near Pekin (41.1600, -92.1700).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF1 Lee County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1337558. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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