SEV3 — ElevatedCLOSEDWeather✓ Corroborated · 5 sources9d ago

Tornado Warning — Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA

A tornado warning has been issued for Howard and Winneshiek counties in northeastern Iowa. No contact-center, knowledge-worker, or customer-operations footprint is present in the affected region. No operational staffing or service-level impact is expected.

Impact Summary

A tornado warning has been issued for Howard and Winneshiek counties in northeastern Iowa. No contact-center, knowledge-worker, or customer-operations footprint is present in the affected region. No operational staffing or service-level impact is expected.

Domain
Weather
Region
Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA, Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA
Opened By
watchkeeper
Jul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
Validated By
auto
Jul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
Event Cluster
2 events
OVIX Score
10.0
Closed
watchkeeper-auto(resolved)
Jul 4, 2026, 07:30 AM UTC

Timeline5

⚠
Incident openedby watchkeeperJul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
Declared from 1 signals. OVIX 10. News 3. BPO 0. Acute severe-weather floor (agents-028): authoritative short-fuse warning, declared at SEV3 regardless of resolved BPO footprint.
✓
Severity validatedby autoJul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
Auto-validated: SEV3 per policy.
✎
Note addedby watchkeeperJul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
External corroboration: corroborated (5 sources via Exa). spotoniowa.com, cbs2iowa.com, winonadailynews.com, nonpareilonline.com, westerniowatoday.com
✎
Note addedby watchkeeperJul 2, 2026, 07:30 PM UTC
Merged new cluster (1 signals, OVIX 10) — same domain, active <24h.
✖
Incident closedby watchkeeperJul 4, 2026, 07:30 AM UTC
Auto-closed: no new material events within 36h for this incident.

Evidence / Why this?

Traced to source — read-onlyUpdated Jul 2, 07:00 PM UTC
Why declareddeclareHybrid
Incident declaration (deterministic floor + LLM relevance gate)v1
DECLARE when deterministicFloor AND (llm.declare OR acuteWeatherFloor) AND NOT aggregateTitle, and no open same-domain incident merges it. deterministicFloor = maxSeverity>=8 AND (newsScore>=1 OR bpoScore>=1 OR acuteWeatherFloor). acuteWeatherFloor = maxSeverity>=9 AND any signal is an acute severe-weather WARNING (tornado/severe-thunderstorm/flash-flood) — overrides the LLM footprint-based suppression. aggregateTitle (grab-bag "Multiple/Several/Various…") is refused (agents-019 §D). Asset-class deny (military/war-zone, WFM-37) suppresses earlier. cyberFloor disabled (agents-009 hotfix).
domain
weather
regions
["Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA"]
bpo score
0
news score
3
llm declare
no
max severity
10
signal count
1
llm rationale
Operations footprint assessment confirms no contact-center or knowledge-worker presence in Howard or Winneshiek counties, Iowa; condition (a) applies and declare:false is warranted.
aggregate title
no
high confidence
yes
acute weather floor
yes
deterministic floor
yes
model claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt watchkeeper-declare-2026-06
Why SEV3SEV3score 3Deterministic
Incident severity level (SEV1–SEV4) at declarationv1
Base: SEV2 if sev>=9 AND news>=2 AND bpo>=1; else SEV3 if sev>=8 AND (news>=1 OR bpo>=1); else SEV4. Acute severe-weather (agents-028): if sev>=9 floor to SEV3 (SEV2→SEV3); minor/transient watches+advisories drop SEV2/SEV3→SEV4. Single-event cap: any SEV2 caps to SEV3 absent sustained multi-day BPO-region corroboration (SEV2 promotion is human-gated via revalidation). score = numeric SEV (1=most severe … 4); SEV3/SEV4 auto-validate, SEV1/SEV2 require human validation.
domain
weather
bpo score
0
news score
3
persistent
no
max severity
10
auto validated
yes
acute weather floor
yes
Geo Provenance
Tierprecise
Sourcesignal_coords
Deterministic

Related Signals1

[Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA] weather 10.0 — Tornado Warningsentinel9d ago

External Corroboration

✓ Corroborated · 5 sourcesChecked Jul 2, 2026, 07:00 PM UTC
Severe Storms to Threaten Iowa Wednesday Night: Damaging Wind, Large Hail, Isolated Tornadoes Possible | North Central Iowa↗spotoniowa.comJul 1, 2026, 02:39 PM UTCEF-2 tornado confirmed in Allamakee County; cleanup and recovery underway↗cbs2iowa.comJun 18, 2026, 09:26 PM UTCNational Weather Service reports tornado in Allamakee County↗winonadailynews.comJun 18, 2026, 07:15 PM UTCReynolds declares disaster for Allamakee County tornado↗nonpareilonline.comJun 24, 2026, 07:30 PM UTCNational Weather Service: Active Weather Pattern to Continue Across Iowa | Western Iowa Today 96.5 KSOM KS 95.7 - News for Atlantic, Audubon, Harlan, Red Oak and Western Iowa↗westerniowatoday.comJul 2, 2026, 02:06 PM UTC

Affected Regions

Howard, IA; Winneshiek, IA