Power Outage in Holdrege, NE

Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in tree damage and power outages in Holdrege. The outages were reported by emergency management to be due to damaged power poles and lines. Other area measured wind gusts included 59 MPH, recorded by a mesonet station located four miles north-northeast of Holdrege, and 58 MPH, recorded by a mesonet station 2 miles north of Atlanta.

The combination of an extended period of light freezing precipitation and frequent gusts over 50 MPH resulted in power outages across the area.

Emergency management reported that 36 power poles were damaged or destroyed over a 2 mile stretch of Road 729 between Road O and Road Q.

Emergency management reported that 36 power poles were damaged or destroyed over a 2 mile stretch of Road 729 between Road O and Road Q.

Power was out in part of the community of Holdrege. Sparks were reported at a substation. Four power poles were damaged near 18th Avenue and Lincoln Street. A large tree was downed at the cemetery, and blocked part of 18th Avenue. Irrigation pipe was moved onto the road approximately a half mile south of town. Part of an irrigation pivot was blown onto J Road between 732 and 733 Road.

This tornado touched down just south of the town of Funk. Along its short path, at least 6 power poles and 4 irrigation pivots were damaged. The maximum wind speed was estimated to be 100 MPH.

There were many stranded motorists across the county. Shelter operations were requested from the Red Cross. Isolated power outages occurred and power poles were on the ground across the southern part of the county. Visibility of one quarter mile was recorded from the AWOS at the Holdege Airport in the afternoon before malfunctioning. The AWOS recorded frequent wind gusts of 35 to 45 mph during the afternoon and evening. A storm total snowfall of 6 inches was reported in Holdrege.

Wind gusts estimated between 60 and 70 MPH resulted in power outages in Holdrege, and was accompanied by nickel size hail. On the west side of Holdrege, a trailer house was tipped onto its side, and tree limbs between 2 and 6 inches in diameter were blown down.

This was an active Tuesday afternoon and evening of thunderstorms across much of South Central Nebraska, although all verified severe weather concentrated within counties south of Interstate 80. There were several reports of large hail (up to baseball size), damaging winds (up to around 70 MPH), a few pockets of very heavy rainfall into mainly the 3-5 range, and one brief EF-0 tornado. This tornado, which exhibited multi-vortex structure along its short path, was caught on video by a storm chaser near Huntley in eastern Harlan County around 5:45 p.m. CDT. Shortly before dropping the tornado, this high-precipitation (HP) supercell storm also yielded tennis ball to baseball size hail several miles north of Orleans. Other notable hail reports on this day included 2 diameter stones near Franklin and ping pong ball size near Blue Hill. As for damaging winds, the highest measured gusts (unofficial sources) featured 71 MPH near Carleton and 63 MPH near Holbrook. At least minor tree/branch damage was reported in or near Cambridge and Naponee, and power lines were blown down near Republican City. Rainfall-wise, the majority of the 24-county area received at least 1 of mostly-welcomed rainfall. However, there were generally four distinct zones that got drenched with noticeably higher amounts of at least 3-4, and locally more. These included portions of the following counties: much of southern/eastern Thayer; much of northern Furnas and adjacent portions of Gosper/Phelps/Harlan; parts of northern Nuckolls/southern Clay; and parts of northeastern York. A few of the highest official 24-hour totals (NWS coop and CoCoRaHS observers) featured: 5.14 northeast of Chester, 4.52 near Deweese, 3.86 in Edison and 3.80 in Hubbell. There was also an unofficial report of a whopping 7 south of Gilead in far southeast Thayer County. Although there were surely several instances of fairly minor flooding and even brief flash flooding, ground truth reports were rather limited. ||Breaking down event evolution/timing, the first strong to severe storms of the afternoon fired up between 3:30-5:00 p.m. CDT on opposite ends of the local area, with one cluster in Thayer County and the other centered over Furnas County. During the next couple hours, intense multicell convection gradually connected the gap between the original two clusters, eventually resulting in one semi-organized band. However, during this same time, the most intense storm of the day took center stage as an embedded HP supercell tracked across much of Harlan and southern Franklin counties, producing very large hail and the aforementioned brief tornado. Between 7 p.m. CDT and nightfall, convection expanded in areal coverage to encompass most all of South Central Nebraska, while the overall severe weather threat diminished. However, around 9 p.m. CDT another cluster of vigorous convection rolled in from the west, yielding a few reports of marginally-severe winds in Furnas County. These were the last severe reports of the evening, with only a large shield of mainly light to moderate rain persisting well past midnight, while gradually ending from west-to-east. ||Closing with some meteorological background, this was a well-anticipated round of severe storms and heavy rainfall, as low-amplitude shortwave energy tracked into Nebraska around the southeast periphery of a larger-scale trough/closed low centered over the Northern Rockies. At the surface, a fairly well-defined and generally west-east oriented quasi-stationary front stretched near the Nebraska-Kansas-border, with the majority of South Central Nebraska residing just north of this boundary in an environment characterized by east-northeast breezes, afternoon temperatures in the 80s F and dewpoints in the upper 60s-low 70s F. During the height of severe storm development, the mesoscale environment featured between 30-50 knots of deep-layer wind shear and mixed-layer CAPE of 2000-3000 J/kg.

A second night of high winds pounded south-central Nebraska. Thunderstorms rolled across the region north of U. S. Highway 6 with strongest winds noted from Ord to Osceola. Wind gusts up to 70 mph were reported in Greeley and Polk counties with extensive tree and power line damage in both counties. The wind took a green house at an Ord business and did minor damage throughout the town.

Thunderstorms in Phelps and Kearney counties produced strong winds which downed power lines, overturned a couple of pivots and caused minor roof damage to a few homes. The town of Wilcox lost power for a time.