As Many as 9 Tornadoes Reported in Nebraska, Iowa

As many as nine tornadoes – at least one rated a powerful EF3 – touched down across northeast Nebraska and northwest Iowa as a storm cell moved over the region in the evening on Oct. 4, causing structural damage and injuries but no fatalities, the National Weather Service said.

Preliminary reports show there were two tornadoes in northeast Nebraska around 6 p.m. on Oct. 4, including one that the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said was an EF3 with winds between 136 and 165 mph that damaged at least 10 homes and dozens of businesses.

Despite massive damage, no one was killed. Fifteen people were treated for injuries in Wayne.

A tornado five miles north of Emerson, Neb., may have originated in South Dakota, said meteorologist Mike Fuhs in the NWS’ Sioux Falls, S.D., office.

In Iowa, it appears there were tornadoes north and south of Sioux City, including one at Sloan, as well as those west and north of Hinton, east of Moville, at Quimby and one south of Cherokee, Fuhs said.

Twenty farmsteads in northwestern Iowa’s Woodbury County were destroyed, and about 60 more were damaged by at least three tornadoes, county Emergency Management Director Gary Brown said. He said the storms cut a path 35 miles long through the county, from Sloan to Pierson.

The early October tornado-spawning storms were a rare occurrence, Fuhs said.

“This far north, it’s pretty unusual to get not just this many tornadoes this late, but tornadoes this strong,” he said.

Fuhs said a couple of the tornadoes were estimated to have been one-quarter to one-half mile wide.