Severe Thunderstorm Warning Issued for Cerro Gordo, Franklin, Hancock, Wright Counties IA
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 23, 2026, 3 months ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Des Moines has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for four north central Iowa counties until 9:15 PM CDT due to a destructive storm with baseball-sized hail and 60 mph winds.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Severe Thunderstorm Warning
- Affected area
- North Central Iowa
- Issued
- May 23, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Des Moines IA
Storm notices can cover different combinations of wind, hail, lightning, and rainfall. Use the original notice for the hazards and boundaries attached to this specific record.
Record status: historical. It was issued 3 months ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in North Central Iowa.
Alert Details
Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued by NWS Des Moines IA. Effective from May 15 at 8:09 PM CDT until May 15 at 9:15 PM CDT. Alert type code: SVR.
Affected Areas
Counties impacted: Cerro Gordo, Franklin, Hancock, and Wright in north central Iowa. Specific areas include northeastern Wright County, northern Franklin County, southeastern Hancock County, and southern Cerro Gordo County. Locations impacted: Hampton, Sheffield, Rockwell, Thornton, Meservey, Swaledale, Geneva, Goodell, Hansell, Chapin, Hampton Municipal Airport, and Beeds Lake State Park. Includes Interstate 35 between mile markers 170 and 183.
What You Should Do
For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building.
Expected Conditions
At 8:07 PM CDT, a severe thunderstorm was located over Meservey, or 15 miles southeast of Garner, moving east at 20 mph. Hazard includes baseball size hail (2.75 inches) and 60 mph wind gusts. This is a destructive storm.
Timeline
Warning in effect until 9:15 PM CDT on May 15.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
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Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,039 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 23, 2026.
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