Power Outage in Grand Island, NE

Narrow band of heavy snowfall fell across portions of south central Nebraska during the evening hours of March 25th into the early morning hours of March 26th. A small, but potent, upper level disturbance moved across the Central Plains during the last weekend of March. Precipitation began as rain during the early evening hours of March 26th before changing to heavy, wet snow after sunset, from southwest to northeast. Warm air and ground temperatures initially caused snow to melt on contact with the ground, but eventually the moderate to heavy rates overwhelmed the above-freezing ground temperatures and led to rapid snow accumulation even on roads and sidewalks. Snow rates near, or just above, one inch per hour were noted within the narrow band of heavy snow. Because of the narrowness of the snow band, snow amounts ranged drastically over short distances. For instance, just between the Tri-Cities amounts ranged from 8 to 10 inches around Kearney, to 5 to 7 inches in Grand Island, to only 1 to 2 inches in Hastings. The heavy snow band was centered over or just northwest of the Highway 30 corridor, where total amounts of 6 to 10 inches were most common. Snow rates peaked during the late evening of the 25th into the early morning hours of the 26th, before the entire system shifted east of the area by dawn on the 26th.||Impacts were somewhat limited, despite the heavy snow amounts, due to the fact that the majority of the heavy snow occurred during the overnight hours on a weekend. This limited impacts to schools and businesses, and snow removal on roadways was relatively efficient due to the aforementioned warm ground temperatures. Also, wind speeds were not overly strong and trees had not started the leafing process, so this limited damage to trees and power lines much more than if this event occurred a few weeks later into the spring season.

March 25, 2023

A large storm system brought a wide range in precipitation types to the area, with thunderstorms, rain, freezing rain/drizzle, sleet, and snow all reported at various times through the event. Precipitation began on the morning of January 2nd, arriving from west/southwest to east/northeast, as rain and a wintry mix with temperatures near or just above freezing. This first round of precipitation exited to the northeast out of the forecast area between 4pm and 5pm. Any break west of Highway 281 was short-lived, however, as scattered to widespread precipitation redeveloped between 6pm and 8pm, and some of this activity was convective in nature. Yet another round of precipitation developed after midnight as the deep upper low approached from the west. Most of the precipitation ended by 6am on the 3rd as the mid level dry slot worked into southern Nebraska. Small, narrow bands of wrap around precipitation redeveloped during the late morning and continued into the afternoon, mainly for areas along and east of Highway 281 and north of Highway 6. Wintry precipitation amounts varied widely from west to east due to a strong temperature gradient. The heaviest snow was northwest of the Tri-Cities, where amounts of 5-8 inches were reported. A mix of light icing and 1 to 3 inches of snow accumulation occurred roughly along a line from Arapahoe, to Kearney, to St. Paul. Icing was of greater concern for eastern portions of the forecast area where ice accumulation ranged anywhere from a trace/light glaze to closer to two-tenths of inch near the Highway 81 corridor. Snow amounts in eastern counties generally remained around 1 inch, or less. Impacts from this system ranged from school and business closures, to spotty power outages - most notably east and northeast of the Tri-Cities. The Nebraska State Patrol reported there were 35 crashes and 175 motorist assists during the event across the state.

January 02, 2023

Based solely on wind chill values, South Central Nebraska endured one of its overall most significant, but brief cold blasts of the last 30+ years during these days shortly before Christmas, with the harshest wind chills focused between the evening of the 21st and the morning of the 23rd. Based on observations from the Grand Island ASOS (Central Nebraska Regional Airport), which reasonably represented conditions across the 24-county area as a whole, most of South Central Nebraska endured roughly five consecutive hours of extreme/rare wind chills around -40 degrees (F) or colder, around 30 consecutive hours of wind chills around -30 or colder (Warning criteria), and around 42 straight hours of wind chills around -20 or colder (Advisory criteria). The absolute worst wind chills occurred on the morning of the 22nd, during which time nearly the entire area saw values plummet into the -40 to -48 range, including airport ASOS readings as low as -48 at Ord, -45 in Hastings and -44 at Grand Island. Although some places (especially northern counties) faced similar to even slightly colder wind chills less than two years prior (during the significant, more prolonged cold blast of mid-February 2021), especially southern parts of the area likely hadn't experienced wind chills this brutal in over 30 years...since the winter of 1989-90! Digging a bit deeper into the comparison between the sheer magnitude of the cold/wind chills between this Dec. 2022 Extreme Cold event and the aforementioned Feb. 2021 event, this one was certainly driven more by strong winds and less-so by extreme ambient air temperatures. In fact, no official daily temperature records were set this time around per ASOS data at Grand Island/Hastings, with actual low temperatures across most of South Central Nebraska on the morning of the 22nd only bottoming out in the -10 to -20 range. As a result, these extreme wind chills were significantly driven by relentlessly strong north-northwest winds. During the entire 30-hour period that the Grand Island ASOS observed wind chills of -30 or colder (centered between the evening of the 21st and the early morning of the 23rd), sustained speeds averaged 20-30 MPH, accompanied by frequent gusts at least 30-40 MPH. Although most of the area saw wind chills climb to slightly warmer than -20 by mid-day on the 23rd (due to the combination of slowly-rising temperatures and decreasing winds), at least sporadic wind chills as cold as -15 to -20 persisted from the night of the 23rd into the morning of the 24th, after which time the final Wind Chill Advisory was allowed to expire. Interestingly, this brief-but-intense cold blast was actually followed by a steady warm-up into and beyond Christmas itself. Again referencing Grand Island ASOS data (generally representative of South Central Nebraska as a whole) the daily high temperature bottomed out at -5 degrees on the 22nd, but then steadily recovered to 9 degrees on the 23rd, 16 on the 24th and 41 on the 25th. In fact, less than a week after the brutal cold of the 22nd, highs soared to between the upper 40s-upper 50s on the 28th. ||Although the bitterly-cold wind chills were certainly the main weather story in South Central Nebraska between the 21st-24th, the early part of this time frame also featured one of the area's first semi-impactful winter precipitation events of the season. To kick things off, much of the daylight hours on the 21st brought a light mix of snow/freezing drizzle, making roads at least somewhat slick. However, the main event transpired during the evening-overnight, as a west-southwest to east-northeast oriented band of moderate to briefly-heavy snow gradually marched across the area, developing slightly behind the leading edge of a powerful Arctic cold front. This main snow band first organized within northern/west-central counties mainly 8-10 PM and eventually exited far southeastern local counties mainly 2-4 AM. Although the heaviest snow only lasted around two hours at any given location, this was long enough to drop a widespread 1-2 (isolated slightly higher), with visibility commonly reduced to at least one-half mile at times thanks to strong north winds sustained 25-30 MPH/gusting up to around 45 MPH. Although falling snow moved out of South Central Nebraska before daybreak on the 22nd, the combination of residual blowing snow and the aforementioned extreme cold/wind chills made for a most unpleasant weather situation for the morning commute. Briefly touching on the meteorological background behind this Extreme Cold event, the aforementioned sharp Arctic front blasted through the area from north-to-south between the late afternoon and mid-evening of the 21st. During the day on the 22nd, the still strong (but slowly decreasing) winds were driven by a stout pressure gradient directed between a roughly 1011 millibar low centered over northeast AR/southeast MO (along the cold front) and a stout 1055 millibar high centered over MT.

December 21, 2022

It was an unforgettable Independence Day for rural residents of far east central Hall and far southwestern Merrick counties, as a climatologically-rare, very early morning EF1-rated tornado abruptly emerged from the cover of darkness and carved out a nearly 10 mile southwest-to-northeast path over a span of 19 minutes, damaging over a half dozen homes, destroying several outbuildings, snapping a number of power poles and damaging trees and crops (fortunately no injuries were reported). This was a high-end EF1 tornado with an estimated peak wind of 110 MPH, touching down at 12:51 a.m. CDT only a short distance south-southeast of the Grand Island city limits (near the intersection of South Locust St. and Schimmer Drive). It continued for nearly four miles within Hall County before crossing over into Merrick County near the intersection of Gunbarrel and Stolley Park Roads. Within Merrick County, the tornado persisted for nearly six more miles before lifting approximately five miles southwest of Chapman at 1:10 a.m. CDT (near the intersection of 5th and D Roads). By South Central Nebraska standards, this was a unique/unusual tornado event in at least two particular ways (not to mention that it took place on a prominent national holiday). For starters, this late night/very early morning tornado was a local rarity, with only around 3 percent of all Nebraska tornadoes between 1950-2020 having occurred between midnight and sunrise. Secondly, the storm mode and meteorological environment were quite out of the ordinary for the region, as this tornado was spawned by a low-topped supercell firmly embedded within a broad area of stratiform rain...more typical of what might occur in a tropical environment in the southeastern United States (see below for more mesoscale details). ||Examining the bigger picture of convective evolution leading up to and following the Hall-Merrick County tornado, the evening of Sunday July 3rd started off with a more traditional round of strong to perhaps marginally-severe storms within South Central Nebraska. Primarily between 7:30-9:30 p.m. CDT, isolated to scattered storms that initially developed to the west/south of the area within southwest Nebraska/northern Kansas spread north-northeastward into several local counties mainly south of a line from Gothenburg-Hastings, prompting a couple of Severe Thunderstorm Warnings that included portions of Dawson, Franklin, Webster, Kearney and Adams counties. However, there were no verifying severe-criteria reports, and only one slightly sub-severe, mesonet-measured 50 MPH wind gust in Beaver City. Between 9:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. CDT, the intensity of storm cores weakened, but convection expanded in coverage across much of the 24-county area, featuring pockets of moderate to heavy rain and spotty wind gusts up to 50 MPH. By 12:30 a.m. CDT on the 4th, the overall-strongest storms/heaviest rain cores were focused over counties along the Highway 281 corridor, while the back end of the convective complex had already departed several southwestern local counties. During the next hour, the aforementioned low-topped supercell near the southern end of the larger-scale stratiform rain shield abruptly intensified and produced the Hall-Merrick County tornado, with briefly-intense radar rotational signatures (including a distinct debris ball on the Correlation Coefficient product) steadily weakening as the storm approached central Merrick County. Finally, between 1:30-3:30 a.m. CDT, the overall-weak convective complex steadily vacated the remainder of South Central Nebraska off to the east-northeast, with only a few lingering showers/weak storms hanging on through night's end. As it turned out, aside from the very limited area directly impacted by the EF1 tornado, the vast majority of South Central Nebraska simply had a rainy/stormy night with widespread and much-needed rainfall. The majority of (but not all) of the 24-county area picked up at least 0.25-0.75, with more limited 1-2 totals and even some very spotty 2-3+ amounts in northern Valley/Greely counties (including 3.25 in Spalding per an NeRAIN observer). ||Wrapping up with a closer look at the meteorological/mesoscale background of this event, forcing aloft was seasonably-modest, featuring broad west-southwest flow aloft over NE...well downstream from a large scale trough centered over the Pacific Northwest coast. However, an embedded small-scale disturbance (potentially convectively-enhanced with time) was a player in the evening convective development as it lifted east-northeast from southwestern into central NE. At the surface, the late afternoon-evening of the 3rd featured steady south-southeasterly breezes of 10-20 MPH across the local area, maintaining a moisture-rich airmass featuring dewpoints well into the low-mid 70s F. As the initial scattered strong storms spread into the local area early in the evening, the mesoscale environment featured healthy mixed-layer CAPE of 2000-3000 J/kg, but only 25-30 knots of deep layer shear (limiting storm organization). Between nightfall and the occurrence of the Hall-Merrick County tornado a few hours later, instability values waned slightly (as is diurnally-typical). However, thanks to an increasing southerly low level jet (evidenced by 40+ knots at 850 millibars) and also a subtle enhancement of west-southwesterly mid level flow associated with the low amplitude wave/vort max tracking into central NE, especially low level shear parameters ramped up to concerning levels during the 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. CDT time frame, with 0-1 kilometer bulk shear reaching 30-40 knots and 0-1 km storm-relative helicity spiking to 300-400 m2/s2, forcing an associated uptick in composite indices such as Significant Tornado Parameter (STP). Most of the time, late night convection in South Central Nebraska becomes at least slightly elevated and unable to fully tap into such strong low level shear and resultant tornadic potential, but this event proved that rare exceptions and mesoscale accidents can occur, aided by the presence of a moisture-rich low level profile (12 a.m. CDT dewpoint of 73 F at Grand Island airport) and a low lifting condensation level (LCL) no more than 750 meters (fostering low storm bases).

July 03, 2022

Tornado. This EF1 tornado tracked nearly 10 miles through rural portions of far east central Hall and far southwestern Merrick counties during the very early morning hours of Monday, July 4th. The maximum wind speed was estimated to be 110 MPH, based on the combination of damage to trees, some buildings and homes, and power poles. The tornado was estimated to be 200 yards wide at its widest point.||This tornado first touched down at 12:51 a.m. CDT in a rural area four miles south of downtown Grand Island (near the intersection of South Locust St. and Schimmer Drive) and quickly gained strength, continuing for nearly four miles within Hall County before crossing over into Merrick County near the intersection of Gunbarrel and Stolley Park Roads. Along its total path, it damaged over a half-dozen homes, including blown out windows, shingle and siding damage, and at least one home had part of its roof decking torn off (fortunately no injuries were reported). Other outbuildings and grain bins were damaged or destroyed, including a barn in Merrick County that was over 100 years old. Several power poles were snapped, along with trees and damage to crops. The damage pattern evident in corn fields had a distinct herringbone pattern...consistent with a tornadic wind field. ||This tornado formed in a trailing area of stratiform rainfall not usually conducive for tornadic development. The combination of a very moist, unstable airmass and very favorable wind shear for the time of day were key in the formation of the low-topped supercell which spawned the tornado.

July 03, 2022

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@Sir_Yehoshua You have power outages, bro?

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