Talk:List of Iowa tornadoes

What in the heck?

How in god's name did this pass an FLC?? Several issues:

• "Tornado Paths" doesn't seem like an FL-level source.
• There's 334 F3+ tornadoes in Iowa history; many are missing.
• Formatting issues in the "Climatology" section.
• "WorldAtlasUS" isn't an FL-level source.
• "Guy Gannett Communications" isn't an FL-level source.
• "AlabamaWx Weather Blog" isn't an FL-level source as it is a blog.
• The "0" isn't colored correctly.
• "A tornado is a violent column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. Although tornadoes can happen at any time of the year, the most popular time for tornadoes to form in Iowa is from April through June" - citation?
• "There have been multiple tornadoes before 1950, but most of them are not recorded accurately or at all, but the most violent and deadliest tornadoes before 1950 have been recorded." - weirdly-structured.
• "Tornado" shouldn't be capitalized.

@Easternsahara: You in specific did the spotcheck, could you comment on this?

May take to FLRC. ^EF⁵ 14:17, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Tornado Paths source

The source is unusably and unreasonably slow, and if I'm not mistaken, is a tertiary compilation including the tornado record-keeping of Thomas P. Grazulis. His Significant tornadoes series of books will contain all tornadoes rated EF2 or above. Where entries there do not exist, they may exist on individual National Weather Service field office's pages. See also Tornado Archive - this source contains data on most tornadoes across the records of both Grazulis, the National Weather Service, and the National Climatic Data Center - but it has been discussed in the weather community as a tertiary source. The page this failed verification tag is attached to appears to be more or less the same.

I also want to point out that the Tornado Paths source has no credits or clarification of its data source - while from its content it's most likely produced by some division of NOAA (judging from the sheer amount of data on the site), nowhere does it say that on the website, and there are no links to where data for any individual tornado comes from. Without credits, I'd argue it falls under user-generated content as an unreliable source (even if it likely isn't, there isn't the featured-content-level scrutiny needed).

Pinging @EF5, per above topic; @Easternsahara, who conducted the spotcheck; @WeatherWriter, who has access to the Grazulis sources; @ActuallyElite, who added the content; and @PresN, who closed the FL review. Departure– (talk) 00:45, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I was going to initiate an FLR a while ago but never got around to it. Zero idea how this passed an FLC. ^EF⁵ 00:49, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Also note that WeatherWriter has left; I have access to the November 1990 Grazulis source however. ^EF⁵ 00:49, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

I hate to hear that. Goes to show how disconnected I've been from Wikipedia since I wrote the Edwardsville article (even ignoring my token daily edits). I do hope they end up coming back in some capacity. Departure– (talk) 00:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

You haven't missed a ton; it's off-season so everybody's bored. ^EF⁵ 01:25, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Hey, I didn't realize how much work I'd still need to put into the article, after it got promoted, I thought it was good enough, but I will keep on working to fix the issues above. I guess I can start by asking if instead of the Tornado Paths source and the Tornado Archive source (which I did actually use first but was told that I should change it), is this source better: Storm Events Database - Search Page | National Centers for Environmental Information ActuallyElite (talk) 15:02, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

This database is generally considered reliable for tornado events in the united states-- however, as EF5 brought up in a previous thread, it's worth noting there have been over 300 EF3+ tornadoes in Iowa and if including them all is a claim made by any table all must be included that can be found in reliable sources to meet featured content's comprehensiveness criterion. Departure– (talk) 21:32, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

As the main contributor to the list, I feel like I should probably say something about the situation. I'd be fine with putting in the work to bring the article up to true featured list status but I would also like some help as I'm not that experienced with editing seeing that I only have around 600 edits and not as active as others. So I would want to get those sources from Thomas P. Grazulis, and if I'm not able to then I would like to get any kind of help filling the table out. I thank everyone for showing me what's wrong with the article, but can I get some help fixing it then? And yes thank you @Departure– for fixing some of the problems that have been stated so far. ActuallyElite (talk) 13:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

And also I found this source by Grazulis online, would this be a better source then for tornadoes before 1990? https://www.google.com/books/edition/Significant_Tornadoes_A_chronology_of_ev/yW5NAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 ActuallyElite (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

It would be, but it's a lot of work. I appreciate your work on the article up to this point and encourage you to improve the articles quality by any means. Departure– (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Ok thank you then, I'll update the table based on significant tornadoes instead. Would you know any sources for tornadoes after 1990 then? ActuallyElite (talk) 14:12, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

The NCDC database you linked above has entries for basically all tornadoes between 1950 and June 2025 (about a 4 month delay), either through the database itself or digitized entries from Storm Data, a free-access publication. Departure– (talk) 15:13, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the sources, I will try my best to update the table. ActuallyElite (talk) 16:19, 30 September 2025 (UTC)