Power Outage in Valentine, NE

Power poles down.

Power pole snapped along Highway 20.

A fourteen inch diameter tree split in half. Power outages reported.

Trees and power lines down.

Trees and power lines down.

At 1852MST the tornado touched down and was intermittently on the ground for almost one mile. The tornado destroyed a four stall calving shed, took down a power line, snapped or twisted several large trees, and moved approximately 25 three quarter ton hay bales in various directions. A pole barn sustained damage with debris found a half a mile away. An empty 500 gallon fiberglass tank was found up to a mile east of this location.

Six power poles were blown down one mile west of the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters building.

A fireman in Valentine reported roofs blown off houses, power poles down, and localized street flooding.

A tornado touched down briefly and took down 3 power poles.

Lightning struck the Nebraska Public Power District substation just east of the Mount Hope Cemetary in Valentine. The strike broke an insulator causing an 8 minute power outage for most of Cherry County.

A powerful cyclone came out of southeast Colorado and through Kansas and eastern Nebraska. Wet snow of 4 to 8 inches accompanied by 40 to 50 mph wind and gusts to 60 mph took down numerous power poles and lines and damaged trees through a large part of north central, central, and southwest Nebraska. It also resulted in the closure of Interstate Highway 80 and many other highways for several hours.

A nearly stationary front extended from a surface low over central Colorado, across northern Kansas. This front separated cold surface high pressure to the north from warm moist air to the south. The surface low tracked along this front to the east. A potent upper level low pressure system tracked from northwest Kansas to northeast Nebraska beginning 23 February 2001 to 24 February 2001. This upper level system pulled abundant moisture north of the front...at first resulting in a day of freezing drizzle across much of southern Nebraska beginning during the early morning hours of 23 February 2001, continuing into the evening. The freezing drizzle did cause some power lines to fail in isolated areas. As the main upper level low entered the central plains 24 February 2001, freezing drizzle changed over to snow by midday. Heavy snow fell over much of west central and north central portions of Nebraska during the afternoon of 24 February 2001. Average snowfall amounts were from 6 to 8 inches. The heaviest snowfall occurred in east central Cherry county, where a foot of new snow (12 inches) was reported. After most of the the heavy snow had fallen, strong north winds created some blowing and drifting of snow in west central Nebraska during the evening hours of 24 February 2001, causing further significant travel difficulty.