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My home town got hit by a tornado today. Actually just a few miles north of town out in the country. 6 dead including 2 kids. My brother was at the farm and well away from the damage. He did call me to let me know it was on the way.
kwg
6 dead and damaged homes

It looked nasty. My Nephew's Wife posted a video from Winterset on Facebook. They were unharmed.

Damn, that season is starting up again. Glad your brother is safe. Keep yourself safe.

Season starting early, storm rolled though here, look for damage in the morning

It missed us north of Des Moines by 20 miles. My brother and sister in law are building a new barn south west of Winterset and it passed their place but it was still in the air and just went on by. It sounds like it went just west of the Winterset city limits and dropped down just about 4 miles north of town and moved parallel of the North River bottoms. There are a number of small acreages in that area. It's really a nice area to build a house.

kwg

S hit! I just got home from the UNO hockey game and saw this. Prayers for all involved and if OBR goes over I'll be there. It's a little un-nerving for that to be starting this early in the year!!

saying 6 killed

Had a tornado touch down NW of Indianapolis last night, trees down and power outage lasting 3-4 hours.

Sounds strange for tornados in early march in Iowa?





















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That's terrible. I'm sure the media will run with "climate change!"

Tragic.

Sounds like there wasn’t much warning, came up in a hurry. Tragic.

Too bad for the 6 that died.

Grew up just a few miles from there. Ex lives there. Being the whore attention whore she is she told son it was an F5. Ravaged the town.

Actually, it isn't early at all. Several years in a row there were lethal tornadoes in Mississippi in February, if you recall. It will continue and get progressively more common as Gulf air warms and moves northward. By June, we'll see tornadoes as far north as Canada.

Actually, I don't find this as "too early". We have a very awkward spring heating and cooling cycle this far north. One day it's warm and the next day it's cold. By tomorrow we expect some snow in central Iowa. Tornados happen when the air is warm and they are accompanied by warm moist air that gets heated by the sun causing most of our tornadoes to be late in the day before sunset, yad, yada, yada.

I remember as far back as 1979. The evening I did my oral interview for the Ankeny P.D. in about the 3rd week in March. On my way home we had 2 tornadoes at the same time. One was about 10 miles north of Winterset and the other was about 15 miles south of Winterset. The one north did little damage but was a threat to the Des Moines airport on the south side of Des Moines. The other was southwest of the little town of St. Charles and destroyed a couple of farm steads. Both occurred when we had an unusually warm spring day. Just like yesterday.

The bottom line is with "global warming" that time line has moved up maybe by 2 to 3 weeks. But on the other hand we have had winters since 1979 that lasted longer than usual and we had summers with zero tornadoes. (1985 & 2010) I personally think the earth is going through a warming period but I am reluctant to say it is caused by humans. We have traditionally been concerned about tornadoes every time we have a warm day in March or April. But, our worst ones happen in late May to the middle of June. Occasionally we get them in September. Here again, it has to do with the awkward weather patterns of warm one day and cold the next this far north.

If anything you folks in the south are just creating too much warm air. I don't know what it is you are doing but STOP !!

Just kidding, My wife says we are retiring and going south this January. Please turn up the heat for us.

kwg

Update on the tornado.

It did not go north of town. It hit south and southwest of town. Starting southwest of town and going northeast between Winterset and Pammel Park. (a county park 6 miles southwest of Winterset) If you were to look it up on a map the system probably started somewhere just north of the little town of Macksburg 15 miles southwest of Winterset.

It did pass through the southeast corner of town predominately over the Winterset cemetery and over the northern most part of the Winterset city park. This would of put the tornado between Winterset and our farm. We are 4 miles southeast of Winterset so it missed us by a wide margin. It did destroy some houses on the southeast corner of town but the most damage was on Carver road south and southwest of Winterset. I can only assume based on the damage I saw on the news that is where the fatalities happened.

Carver road is on the Middle river bottom and consists of many 5 acres plots with homes. It is a very nice place to build a house with views of the Middle river bottoms and valley. The only issue with that part of the county is a large number of rattle snakes that live in the limestone on the hill sides. It's actually very rugged ground once you get away from the river, therefor, the rattle snakes. There used to be a wives tale about tornadoes never following rivers. I guess you can say this wives tale has been busted. 40 years ago very few of those houses were there. It was mostly cow pasture and corn fields. So much for progress.

Apparently there was another tornado further south of Madison county and it did kill one person. So Iowa lost 7 people, 2 of which were kids in a matter of a few minutes due to this storm system.

kwg

Where are you from. I was born and raised around Winterset and moved to Ankeny in 1979.

kwg

Tornados are the real deal unlike hurricanes or blizzards
We were in Des Moine at the state highschool archery shoot at the fairgrounds some people were freaking in the building especially the ones acting in. Charge
I hate that the news is right there showing pictures and detailing the damage. i feel for the loss but can’t stand the news. Let the people call family friends and tell them the ok dont show their housaes destroyed before they can talk

Yes, the 24 hour news cycle can sometimes be a bit much.

kwg