August 21, 2002 Muscatine County Non-Supercell Tornado

Shortly after 6 p.m. on 21 August 2002, an F1 tornado touched down in Muscatine County just north of Muscatine on Hwy 38. The tornado had about a 1.6 mile path destroying two sheds and causing roof damage to another shed and a farm house, in addition to scattered tree damage. The synoptic and mesoscale environment that day supported severe weather mainly in the mode of straight-line winds. A non-supercell tornado developed in a non-descending mode as a cell interacted with a convective boundary. The use of high resolution 8-bit velocity data was key to the decision to warn and helped provide a 4 minute lead time before the tornado was reported by a nearby amateur radio operator. See especially the radar data at 2311Z and 2316Z.

STORMDATA