KEARNEY — Severe weather can strike at any time, as was evidenced by the heavy rains, large hail and other threats that impacted south central Nebraska during the evening hours of Thursday, Sept. 21.
Much of central Nebraska is under a slight risk for severe weather, two out of five, according to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), located in Norman, Okla.
A large upper-level trough of low pressure is present over the western part of the country and upper-level winds across south central and central Nebraska are mostly out of the west.
It was noted that the upper-level winds were not overly strong and that any thunderstorms would be slow moving as a result.
A warm front was draped across the area, nearly mirroring I-80 and helped to serve as a forcing mechanism for thunderstorms that began to develop in the late afternoon.
Alan Hickford, lead meteorologist with National Weather Service – Hastings, said that the first storms were discrete and showed supercell characteristics. These were the storms that posed the greatest hail threat.
Anywhere the core of these storms passed, large hail followed. Some of the largest hail stones fell in the Darr area in Dawson County, as windshields were shattered and car windows broken by baseball sized hail.
There were other swaths, including one from Red Cloud to west that saw at least golf ball sized hail.
As the evening wore on storms that had formed out west began to push into the NWS Hastings area. A mesoscale convective system (MCS) began to take shape.
MCS’s are formed from a process known as upscale growth. This is basically when the rain cooled air from several storms join forces to create a larger cold pool. This cold pool spreads out along the ground and acts as a mini cold front, triggering new storms as it moves along.
There were several tornado warnings issued during the evening, but there were no confirmed tornadoes during the evening Hickford said.
Hickford said the system started to dominate the area, they began to be concerned about strong wind, this was also when most of the rain began falling across the area.
Some of the highest rainfall totals were in a corridor of southern Dawson, northern Gosper and northwestern Phelps counties. Hickford said rainfall amounts of four to five inches, with some localized amounts of six inches.
One residents rain gauge in northwestern Phelp County read 5.25 inches on Friday morning.
The amounts prompted the NWS to issue Flood Warnings for northern Gosper and Phelps counties that were set to expire on Friday morning.
Residents were still advised that flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations could still occur, but the water should be working through the local drainage systems.
NWS warns people to turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads, most flood deaths occur in vehicles.
In the Tri-City area, the Hastings Municipal Airport broke the record for rainfall on Sept. 21 with 2.03 inches, this breaks the previous daily record of 1.45 inches set in 1990.
Hastings Utilities electric crews responded to a pair of outages overnight, one in an area around H Street and Wabash Avenue and one around the 1300 block of Pepperridge Drive.
The City of Kearney saw 3.69 inches, 4 inches in the area and Grand Island, 0.95 inches. NWS noted a Flash Flooding Warning had been issued for Kearney during the evening.
South central Nebraska wasn’t the only region to experience severe weather, multiple counties in southwest Nebraska were also impacted.
According to Brandon Vincent, lead forecaster with NWS Goodland, Kan., a discrete supercell formed in the Hitchcock County area and due to the steering level winds of only five miles per hour, the storm was notably slow moving.
There was two-inch hail reported west of McCook, golf ball sized stones in Danbury in Red Willow County and a few reports of baseball sized hail in Decatur County, Kansas, just south of Red Willow Co.
Vincent said the McCook airport reported 2.77 inches during the evening.
As for the weekend forecast, conditions look to be mild to seasonably warm and mainly dry.
There doesn’t appear to be any major impacts Sunday through the next work week as a persistent upper-level ridge will lead to daily highs in the 70s and 80s with low precipitation chances.
