Thunder and lightning rolled through the area late Sunday night, the anniversary of a devastating storm that hit the area in the late 1800s. Towns including Kalona and Riverside saw a severe hail storm in 1897 that destroyed 40,000 acres of corn and damaged an additional 70,000 acres. The wind and hail also destroyed farm buildings, broke windows and killed thousands of chickens and turkeys.

According to the National Weather Service, piles of hail that accumulated in ditches were six feet deep in some places. One hundred seventeen years later, a minor thunderstorm passed through Washington County. There was no hail, but an inch of rain fell in the City of Washington during the short lived storm.