Multiple people were killed in Iowa, officials said, after severe weather — including widespread damaging winds and intense tornadoes — erupted in the nation’s heartland on Tuesday.
Large tornadoes tore through southwest parts of the state, and the town of Greenfield, about 50 miles from Des Moines, took a direct hit from a particularly violent twister.
“Sadly, we can confirm there were fatalities and injuries within the community of Greenfield from this tornado,” state police said in a statement Tuesday evening, without providing further information.
The twister lofted debris 40,000 feet into the air in Greenfield, according to radar estimates, and reportedly carried some of it 25 to 30 miles away. Storm-chaser drone footage from the scene showed widespread destruction, including demolished homes, flipped cars and defoliated trees. Some homes appeared to have been stripped off their foundation.
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A county hospital assisted the injured “as it also sustained tornado damage,” the police statement said.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said in a statement that she plans to visit Greenfield in the morning to assess the damage. “It was just a few weeks ago that tornadoes hit several other Iowa communities, and it’s hard to believe that it’s happened again,” she said.
Dramatic drone footage from the Greenfield tornado from storm chaser Reed Timmer showed a violently spinning, massive funnel with smaller vortexes embedded within the primary twister’s circulation. The Weather Service issued a warning for the twister 46 minutes before it touched down giving residents time to shelter, probably reducing the death toll.
In addition to Greenfield, Tuesday’s twisters also struck near the towns of Red Oak, Villisca, Brooks, Carbon and Corning. Photos and videos from these locations showed large, menacing funnels shredding the landscape.
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One woman died after being ejected from a vehicle during the storm near Corning in Adams County — about 70 miles southwest of Des Moines — Lisa Brown, the county medical examiner, told The Washington Post on Tuesday evening. Storm-chaser video from the area showed wind turbines flattened as the twisters swept by.
After wreaking havoc in southwest Iowa, the storms raced through the state’s central and eastern regions, northern Missouri, southern Minnesota and western and central Wisconsin, prompting dozens of severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings.
Tornado watches stretched from northeast Oklahoma into southern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin well into Tuesday night.
The National Weather Service received over 400 reports of severe weather from Texas to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Tuesday. At least 20 tornadoes were reported, all but two of them originated from southwest and central Iowa. The other tornadoes were reported in Wisconsin and southern Minnesota.
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Storms got off to an early start Tuesday, racing across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, several prompting tornado warnings. They blew through the Omaha metro area with golf-ball-size hail and winds gusting 60 to 70 mph. Those storms marked the leftovers of supercells or rotating thunderstorms that bombarded northeastern Colorado with hail the size of baseballs Monday night.
Share this articleShareMore storms Wednesday and beyond
Even after Tuesday’s storms, more severe weather was predicted in the days ahead. Wednesday could yield at least scattered strong to severe thunderstorms from Buffalo to Dallas. On Thursday, severe storms are possible again in the southern Plains, and the weekend could bring yet another round to portions of the central states.
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