Staff at the National Weather Service office at the Davenport Airport had to leave their posts and seek shelter as a weekend tornado nearly hit their building. Meteorologist Rich Kinney says an E-F-zero twister with winds around 75 miles an hour touched down near the Iowa 80 truck stop in Walcott around 10:30 on Saturday night. While it was a weak tornado, Kinney says it could’ve been a disaster had it struck a few hours earlier in the evening.
The tornado followed Interstate 80 eastward and hopped over the town of Mount Joy, carving a ten-mile path over about 15 minutes. Kinney says all of the practice and training paid off as the National Weather Service crew stayed at their computers as long as they could before evacuating as the twister approached.
On the plus side, he says the storms brought some areas of the drought-plagued state up to two inches of rainfall.
