Thunderstorm Wind in Page County, Iowa

Personal weather station measured wind gust of 84 mph.

On the afternoon of May 18, severe thunderstorms produced damaging winds gusts and hail across southwest Iowa. a strong shortwave trough ejected eastward across the region, providing robust forcing for large-scale ascent. Despite lingering morning cloud cover, very steep mid-level lapse rates combined with the daytime heating of a moist low-level airmass to generate strong instability south of an advancing cold front. Mesoanalysis revealed strong theta-e advection extending from central Kansas through southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa, highlighting the rapid return of a highly volatile environment. Thunderstorms initially initiated on the warm side of the boundary over northwest Kansas before additional development began over far southeast Nebraska, eventually pushing into southwest Iowa by 4:00 PM CST. This convection initially exhibited discrete supercell characteristics before eventually transitioning into a broader multicell cluster.

The primary hazards with this portion of the severe complex were large hail and significant straight-line winds. Residents in communities such as Farragut and College Springs reported hail up to ping-pong ball size (1.50 inches). Meanwhile, the bowing segments of the storm complex continued to produce extreme downdrafts, highlighted by an 84 mph wind gust measured by a personal weather station northeast of Shambaugh. The storms tracked eastward into the evening hours.