Power Outage in Princeton, IA

On Thursday, June 29, a powerful severe wind event moved over the region. This event was known as a derecho given its long duration from north of Kansas City to southern Indiana and its consistent strong intensity. Almost all of the damage in the area surveyed locally was due to straight-line winds, at times easily peaking between 100-120 mph in far western Illinois. Those who experienced the event conveyed how the strongest winds persisted for 10 to 15 minutes, and in some locations, it lasted as long as 20 minutes, which is atypical for derecho events.||There were some swaths of enhanced damage. These were largely due to intense wind surges in the local area. One of these in Clark county, Mo was determined to be a short-lived EF1 tornado.

June 29, 2023

Tornado. A tornado touched down 3 miles north of Atalissa, Iowa in Cedar County, snapping power poles and large trees along its path. It caused significant damage to two homes southwest of Bennett, Iowa, and flipped over a semi along interstate 80. It also damaged several concrete block silos south of Bennett. The tornado continued to track to the northeast through a rural area, causing sporadic tree damage. The tornado entered extreme northwest Scott County about a third of a mile south of 220th St., then travelled around one mile before entering Clinton County about a half mile west of the intersection of 280th St. and 110th Ave. The tornado then dissipated about 2 miles south of Wheatland. The peak winds were estimated at 120 mph. The tornado was rated EF-2 in Cedar County, and EF-0 in Scott and Clinton Counties.

March 31, 2023

Thunderstorm Wind. A trained spotter reported an estimated 80 MPH wind gust at 12th Street and Main Street in Davenport. Branches are down, power poles were bent at a 30 degree angle and a storm window was blown into a bedroom.

March 31, 2023

The evening of February 18th, a powerful cold front quickly moved through eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois. A narrow band of intense snow squalls accompanied this front, bringing a near instantaneous onset of brief winter storm conditions. Roads went from dry to snow covered in a matter of minutes, temperatures fell from around 35 to 28 in minutes, and visibility fell from over 6 miles to under 1/4 mile as the snow squall arrived. Snow accumulation generally was a 1/2 inch to 1 inch, falling in around 1 hour. Once the snow squall ended, dry and windy conditions continued the rest of the night.

February 18, 2022

A weaker winter storm moved into the area and added more ice and snow to the snow pack received the other day. This system moved in from the south and brought along a strong pull of warm air aloft. This led to a lot more ice accumulation than was expected prior to the event. While the storm was supposed to lead to mostly snow for the northern half of our forecast area, those areas received mainly freezing rain and sleet through most of the afternoon. This led to widespread ice accumulations of 0.10-0.25. In the southwest part of our forecast area, more ice accumulation was noted, with many locations reporting around 0.25 or even more. Along with the accumulating ice, some downed tree limbs and power outages were a result.||Mid afternoon, the freezing rain began to switch to snow from a line around Iowa City, IA to Freeport, IL. A relatively strong band formed in this location and dropped around 4 of snow, especially in the Iowa City area. There were widespread reports of 2.3 inches of snow and sleet accumulation across eastern Iowa.

January 01, 2021