Tornado Season is here
🕑 Added 2022-03-05 16:56:41 +0000 UTCI'm not chasing today, but thought I'd start a thread for today's Iowa & vicinity severe weather event. A triple point set-up with weak-ish CAPE and good SRH is sometimes enough to get it done.

CAMS (Convective Allowing Models) have been consistently resolving supercells and mixed modes in the wake of the initial storm mess. I thought about taking the bait, but the low CAPE and distance his me sitting this one out.
So let's start the event discussion thread. Please feel free to post grabs and photos in the community section (since you're not allowed here... which is lame).
Comments
Professor Beats
David I love that you were petting a small one ;). How very like a dream. Was it soft like a cat?
Paul Sherman
It was heartbreaking seeing this outbreak happen here in iowa. If EF-4s are happening in Dec prior to Christmas & now March in Iowa, im worried what April May & June hold.
Brenda
Apparently, NWS had delays getting warnings out. Some were over 9 minutes. They’ll never know if the delay caused fatalities or not. There is a great article at https://www.foxweather.com about it. Such a freak event. So many tornado chasers chose not to chase in IA because it didn’t look like any storms would produce tornadoes. Just goes to show how unpredicted weather can be in March in the midwest. Kuri Bolger lost her husband, 2 children & her mom. She is currently hospitalized with very serious injuries to her leg & arm. Her 8YO son & her dad both survived. There is a GoFundMe for her if anyone is interested. If you search for Kuri Bolger on gofundme.com you will see it.
Brenda
That and crashing passenger jets. I was living in Sioux City, IA when United Flight 232 crashed on 7/19/1989. I was working at a call center 1/4 mile away. The whole bldg shook from the impact then everyone stopped talking mid-sentence. The visual of the chunk of fuselage laying on the runway brought me to tears. There was no doubt that there were fatalities. 112 people died, but miraculously, 184 passengers survived. That is something that your city doesn’t want to be remembered for. 😢☹️
Pecos Hank
Glad it was a false alarm. The next one may not. Keep taking the precautions and maybe keep a little bag of dog treats in the bathroom.
Pecos Hank
That’s terrible. Thanks Brenda.
Pecos Hank
Whoa!
Pecos Hank
Too often
David hoffman
Anyone else have tornado dreams often ? I was in Arkansas saw 10 or more tornadoes, everyone running except me, a smaller tornado came up to me and was petting it like a Cat while it spun in circle lol, 🤣🤣🤣🤣😅😅🤣🤣🤣😅🤣🤣
Richard C
National weather service has upgraded the Iowa tornado to EF4 after surveys... Winds 170 mph Plus
Marti Masters
Texas Storm Chasers were chasing live. Their vid and another posted by Brett Adair of the tornado are on Youtube. Total 7 killed. For an EF3, it had violent rotation and you can see the vortices really churning. My condolences to the families of the dearly departed. So sad :(
Brenda
Four of the people killed in the Winterset, IA tornado yesterday were relatives - 2 little boys (2YO, 5YO), their 37YO dad and their 63YO grandma. Their mother and 2 other kids (not sure if siblings), along with Grandpa were all hospitalized. They were all found huddled together in the main floor pantry. Home did not have a basement. The young family was visiting from Missouri. Can’t begin to imagine what their loved ones are going through.
Its pretty rare to get that kind of warning in the city. Usually its out in the boonies or outlying areas. I hadn't spent time thinking thru my escape plan as I had when I lived in CA prepping for EQs.
Brenda
Yeah, that phone warning just about makes your heart jump out of your chest.
Brenda
Another person was killed in Lucas County, IA bringing death total to 7. In case any of you are old enough to remember the movie “The Bridges of Madison County” which starred Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, it was filmed in Winterset, IA and the surrounding area. At one time, there were 19 covered bridges in the county, but now only 6 remain. I have not heard if any of the bridges were damaged. These tornadoes will leave hearts broken, as Madison County population is less than 17,000. It is very rural and Winterset is the largest community with a population of 5,600. 🙏😭🙏
2:55 AM I got a TORNADO WARNING----TAKE COVER NOW!!! message on my phone. A first. I freaked out--dead sleep to insta-panic. But. None of my local TV stations (Indpls, IN) had anything about it on their websites. But I was frozen, listening. For 40 minutes. Listening. Plotting about how to wrestle dogs into bathtub. Fortunately nothing until a massive downpour hit about an hour later.
Richard C
Today is setting up to possibly be another bad day down south
Mike Castles
So sad, thanks for the tip on the videos.
Brenda
OMG - local news outlet reporting 4 adults, 2 kids under 5YO killed; 4 transferred to hospitals - 1 with life threatening critical injuries & 3 in serious condition. Search & rescue ongoing. Roughly 25-30 homes destroyed & approximately 10,000 without power. 😭😭😭
Richard C
National news outlets now reporting 6 fatalities in Madison County Iowa.. two children, four adults