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The public record 1996 to today

Iowa wind history

The public federal storm record holds 1,582 days with wind on record somewhere in Iowa since 1996, 1,345 of them at 58 mph or more, across 43,768 reports. The strongest on record is 145 mph on 10 August 2020 in BENTON County. 86 cities have wind on record within 10 miles of their centre, and each has a page that says what was searched, which storm days more than one source carried, and how far away the nearest instruments stood. The hail family has its own index: Iowa hail history.

1,582

Days with wind on record, statewide

1,345

Days at 58 mph or more

145mph

Strongest measured, Aug 2020

86

Cities with wind on record nearby

Wind by city in Iowa

Ranked by days with wind on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population, each with its strongest figure: measured in the observed tone, an estimate in the estimated tone. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.

  1. 01 Bettendorf 249 days 107 mph
  2. 02 Davenport 239 days 107 mph
  3. 03 Eldridge 205 days 98 mph
  4. 04 Windsor Heights 201 days 120 mph
  5. 05 Cedar Rapids 195 days 140 mph
  6. 06 Urbandale 191 days 120 mph
  7. 07 West Des Moines 185 days 120 mph
  8. 08 Council Bluffs 183 days 104 mph
  9. 09 Clive 183 days 120 mph
  10. 10 Des Moines 177 days 120 mph
  11. 11 Johnston 170 days 120 mph
  12. 12 Pleasant Hill 159 days 120 mph
  13. 13 Marion 155 days 130 mph
  14. 14 Norwalk 154 days 120 mph
  15. 15 Hiawatha 152 days 140 mph
  16. 16 Grimes 151 days 120 mph
  17. 17 Ankeny 146 days 120 mph
  18. 18 Waukee 144 days 92 mph
  19. 19 Sioux City 140 days 98 mph
  20. 20 North Liberty 140 days 90 mph
  21. 21 Iowa City 135 days 90 mph
  22. 22 Coralville 134 days 90 mph
  23. 23 Polk City 133 days 120 mph
  24. 24 Sergeant Bluff 133 days 98 mph
  25. 25 Tiffin 132 days 90 mph
  26. 26 Altoona 131 days 120 mph
  27. 27 Independence 127 days 94 mph
  28. 28 Burlington 126 days 90 mph
  29. 29 Ames 125 days 100 mph
  30. 30 Asbury 125 days 92 mph
Every place in Iowa (86)

Wind days by year in Iowa

Days with wind At 58 mph or more

The busiest year on record is 2025, with 72 days of wind, 62 of them at 58 mph or more.

Strongest wind recorded in Iowa

Measured Estimated, not measured

Strongest wind recorded in Iowa: date, wind speed, whether it was a gust or a sustained speed, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Speed Reading Evidence County
10 Aug 2020 145 mph Gust Ground observation BENTON
10 Aug 2020 145 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
10 Aug 2020 140 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
10 Aug 2020 140 mph Gust Ground observation LINN
10 Aug 2020 130 mph Gust Ground observation CLINTON
10 Aug 2020 130 mph Gust Ground observation LINN
10 Aug 2020 130 mph Sustained Ground observation Not stated
10 Aug 2020 130 mph Gust Ground observation CLINTON
The next step

Get the wind report for an address in Iowa

The figures on this page are the record across Iowa: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: every wind report with its distance and bearing from the roof, the nearest station's readings, the analysis grid sampled at the address and labelled as analyzed, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

What counted
Every wind report in the archive filed under Iowa by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A wind day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of wind, not four. A report's figure is its gust where it has one and its sustained speed otherwise, and the tables say which.
Measured and estimated
A speed reported by a person or an instrument on the ground, whether read from an anemometer or judged by an observer from what the wind did, is filed as observed; a speed inferred from a grid or an analysis is an estimate and is marked as one. The two are never added together.
Severe
A day counts as severe when its strongest figure reached 58 mph, the National Weather Service criterion for a damaging gust. Weaker wind is still on the record, and still on this page.
Stations
A station reading is the wind at the instrument, not at any address, and is listed with the distance from the page's centre to the instrument. Readings are fetched for the ground around an address when a report is run and held afterwards, so the stations on a page are the ones within 30 miles that the archive holds readings from.
What this is not
Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about what reached one.
Terms used on this page
Peak gust, sustained wind, independent source: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
The record
Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 31 October 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.