The Storm Prediction Center confirmed seven new tornado touchdowns across Florida, Iowa and South Dakota over the past 48 hours, as a multi-day severe weather outbreak that battered the Midwest and mid-Atlantic earlier this week pushed into new territory. Seven weather alerts remained active across the three states as of Friday.
South Dakota bore the brunt of the latest round, with confirmed tornadoes reported 6 miles south and 2 miles east of Gann Valley, 13 miles west of Wessington Springs, and 5 miles southwest of Willow Lake, according to the National Weather Service. A separate tornado was confirmed 3 miles east-southeast of Fort Myers, Florida, marking a southward jump for an outbreak that had previously been concentrated in the nation’s midsection.
The tornadoes were only part of the damage. The Storm Prediction Center logged 71 large hail reports and 344 damaging wind reports nationwide over the same 48-hour window, indicating the outbreak’s dominant hazard was destructive straight-line wind rather than tornadic activity. All figures are post-event confirmations compiled from storm reports, not active warnings, and the immediate tornado threat from this round has passed.
The activity extends a stretch of consecutive days with confirmed tornadoes across the country. A day earlier, the Storm Prediction Center confirmed six tornadoes near Stacyville and Oto, Iowa; Trenary, Michigan; Wytheville, Virginia; and North Sterling Reservoir, Colorado, following tornadoes confirmed in Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota the day before that. The pattern has now produced confirmed tornadoes in eight states — Colorado, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia and, as of the latest reports, Florida — over roughly four days.
South Dakota’s repeat appearance in the confirmed-tornado tally, with four separate touchdowns in the latest 48-hour period alone, points to sustained instability lingering over the northern Plains even as the broader severe weather threat has generally trended eastward and southward through the week. Residents in South Dakota and Florida should continue monitoring local National Weather Service offices for follow-up damage surveys, which can upgrade preliminary tornado ratings once wind-speed and damage-path assessments are complete.
With 344 damaging wind reports far outpacing the tornado count, the greater nationwide impact from this stretch of severe weather has come from straight-line wind and hail, capable of downing trees and power lines across a broad swath of the country even where no tornado touched down.