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Possible Tornado Reported in Ollie, Iowa

Tornadoes were reported in at least three Iowa counties on Friday, March 31, according to local reports.

This footage, streamed live on Facebook by Tim Jones on Friday, shows a possible tornado in Ollie, a city in Keokuk County. County officials told local media that Hedrick, Koeta and Martinsburg were also impacted. Tornadoes were also reported in Wapello and Poweshiek counties. Credit: Tim Jones via Storyful

Video transcript

TIM JONES: It's a massive tornado. Look at this. We got school buses coming.

-

Trying to get the heck out of there.

TIM JONES: You could tell the winds are picking up. The tornado's--

[WINDS WHIPPING]

--from left to right. We're not in any danger. Look at those clouds getting sucked up. Look at the rising motion. Upward vertical motion here. This storm is absolutely phenomenal. Luckily, we're in the middle of nowhere, but there are farmsteads out here. This is about 30 miles or so, I'm guessing, southwest of Washington, Iowa. And I'll call out-- I'll call out some of the towns here that I've forgotten.

That whole cloud right there is the tornado. This entire cloud right here. All that is the tornado, even though that's the wall cloud above it. Everything below the lighter area that is all the tornado. Massive, massive tornado. The structure on this storm is absolutely phenomenal. Unbelievable.

This storm will head towards Sigourney, and eventually, it will track somewhere around Iowa City. Kenzie, this is southwest-- it's well, well southeast of Des Moines. It's northeast of Ottumwa is where it's at.

Absolutely mammoth tornado. You can feel the winds picking up now, feeding right into it.

Here, I'm with my chase team right here. That's Brandon.

- Hey, guys.

TIM JONES: Danny, Dalton.

- Hey, guys.

- This is our team here.

TIM JONES: So now it's crossing the road right here.

- Back over here going east.

TIM JONES: Here it's crossing the road. Look at that rapid motion. Look at that rotation. It's unbelievable. Big day. We're in a high risk, the highest risk possible right now for severe weather. Tornado's crossed the road. It's got to be a mile wide. Right now, it's got about a mile wide. Look at the up rising motion. Look at the counterclockwise rotation with this. There are farmsteads. There are a few small towns. Does anybody have a-- can anybody look up the name of the towns for me? I can't--

- I think it was Hedrick?

TIM JONES: Yes. So this is about east of Hedrick. Somewhere in the Hedrick, Iowa. But we're southwest of Washington. We're Northeast of Ottumwa.

- There it is. You can kind of see the debris. It's very, very small. Something is being hit.

TIM JONES: This is moving away from us. It's all right. We're fine. The tornado is just-- and this makes it look farther away than it is. But the tornado is right there guys. Look above the power poles and the power lines. It's right there. See that clear spot right above that? That's the rear flank downdraft, guys. Tornado is right in front of us. Tornado's right in front of us here. See? It's right in the field.

It looks on Facebook Live, it looks farther away than it really is, but it's not.

- This tornado's probably within a mile and a half of us right now. We got a tour van outside this town.

TIM JONES: Large tornado, probably somewhere between a half mile to a mile wide. Have not seen any damage, just a lot of dust. Here comes that rear flank downdraft now. So the winds are going to really pick up. And we're going to have to get back in the truck and run east pretty fast here, or we're gonna lose it. Gotta go. All right, we gotta go.

- Come back live. We're gonna try to do a sideways version.

[WINDS WHIPPING]

- We're gonna try [INAUDIBLE].

TIM JONES: Go ahead and turn around. And I'll get in the other way. Well, first time ever I've never captured a tornado of this magnitude on Facebook Live. It's going northeast. You need to go east as far as you can and then north. Right now, it's raining. It's going to be wrapped in rain. Tornado's-- you wanna get away from it? Go south. Now you can go back west if you wait about two minutes.

- All right, thank you.

TIM JONES: You're welcome. Be safe.

- It's going in front of us, guys.

TIM JONES: Yep.

- Trying to get you a little bit of--

- All right.

[INAUDIBLE] here, but we're going to go get--