On This Date: An F5 Tornado Roared Through An Iowa College
One state's earliest known most violent tornado carved through a town, including a college campus in an era decades before the first tornado warning was issued.
On June 17, 1882, 143 years ago today, an F5 tornado tore an estimated 105-mile long path through parts of six central Iowa counties, claiming 68 lives and injuring another 300.
According to the National Weather Service and tornado historian Thomas Grazulis, the twister killed 10 near the towns of Rippey, Kelley and southwest Marshal. County before it barreled into the town of Grinnell. At least 39 were killed and 73 homes destroyed in Grinnell, about 45 miles east-northeast of Des Moines.
Both buildings of what was then known as Iowa College were destroyed, and three students were killed in their dorm rooms that day.
Another 13 fatalities occurred southeast of Grinnell near Malcolm and Brooklyn, Iowa.
Of the Hawkeye State's 11 known F5 or EF5 tornadoes, this was the earliest on record. It happened without warnings, as the first public tornado warning wasn't issued until 1952. It also happened over 100 years before the nation's Doppler radar network was built.
This destructive tornado didn't spell the end for the college, though. Once news of the school's financial challenges after the tornado filtered through the press, and after one of the town's founders visited the Chicago Board of Trade, donations from across the nation allowed the school - now called Grinnell College - to rebuild.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
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