April 17th, 2025

Almost one year later, southwest Iowa was the target of another Tornado Emergency.

At around 8:55pm on the night of Thursday, April 17th, the National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the nearby county of Page County. This is the third time a tornado emergency has been issued within 100ish miles of my QTH. 

What very scary times we are living in right now. I'm quite fearful for this summer as this was another close call for Maryville.

Sure enough, I was lucky to catch the spectacular lightning show this storm just to the north gave off. I had just finished up a band concert and were hanging out with friends at our local ice cream shop. The anvil cloud that I spotted to the north of Maryville was absolutely terrifying. What's even scarier is that this severe weather event was centered around Maryville just 2 days prior. After further discussion, the weather service moved it north into the Nebraska-Iowa border area.

While I didn't storm chase this storm, I was staying weather-aware and was ready to mobilize should the danger take a sudden turn to the south. It didn't, as this system moved directly east.

Omaha's northern and southern metroplexes were not spared by this storm whatsoever. I have a friend who lives in the Omaha area and they reported that to the north and south, baseball-sized hail as well as two confirmed tornadoes touched down. Below is just one of the several hook echoes I spotted on radar as a result of this storm. This was just about 30 minutes before the Tornado Emergency was issued:

At one point and time, the TVS marker you see above was rated around 8000 - 9000, right before it entered the city of Essex. This usually denotes a large and extremely dangerous tornadic thunderstorm with a vortex signature. In addition, 3-inch teacup-sized hail was expected with this storm. 

KMALand, Shenandoah's radio station, provided up-to-date coverage on this severe weather event. I have yet to find another broadcast radio station that does such a good job covering severe weather events, even down here in Nodaway County, Missouri!

Easter weekend of 2025 will most likely go down as one of the worst tornado events of 2025. Because Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday will see severe weather well into Dixie Alley, tornadoes, large hail, and damaging wind gusts all expected. My poor southern neighbors just can't catch a break.

I ask that you pray for us Midwesterners and the Southerners who will be affected by these intense storms this weekend.

I will update this page as the weather service concludes their damage survey. Stay tuned.

UPDATE (4-19-2025): After about 2 days, the National Weather Service completed their investigations. Here is what they found, paraphrased by me:

"To the north, places such as Omaha and the Omaha metroplex saw considerable tornado touchdowns and baseball-sized hail. The northern suburbs of Omaha, at Fort Calhoun, saw a narrow yet powerful EF3 tornado that lasted for over 8 miles. 

"Fremont County, Iowa saw an EF0 tornado touch down outside the city of Tabor, which lasted for almost 5.5 miles. At around 8:30pm local, a Tornado Emergency was issued for the small Iowa town of Essex when a large and destructive tornado was reported moving east into the town. After a whopping 20 mile damage path, the tornado dissipated in a rural field just east of Nyman, Iowa.

"After preliminary reports, NWS teams deduced that the Essex tornado was an almost mile-wide EF1 tornado with windspeeds of up to 110mph. Thankfully, no injuries or fatalities were reported from this severe weather event, but many homes, vehicles, and businesses were damaged by hail ranging from 2 inches to 4 inches."