Wednesday, December 15, 2021 started out the day breezy with the expectation of high winds and gust of up to 70 mph to soon sweep across Nebraska and Kansas.
Along with the high winds brought severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings in parts of north central Kansas and south central Nebraska.
Jordan Thies, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hastings, Nebraska said as of Thursday morning there were two confirmed tornadoes in south central Nebraska.
Aside from the severe thunderstorms, Thies said the winds lived up to its expectations with the National Weather Service issuing a dust storm warning at 1:30pm that afternoon.
The National Weather Service said it was much like tropical storm weather with gusts around 70 mph, but the 90 mph wind gusts were essentially hurricane force winds.
As the severe thunderstorms continued to track north east, areas in its path saw tornado warnings as well.
Further south where north central Kansas was getting very high winds as well, two wildfires ignited, forcing rural residents in south east Sheridan County to evacuate, and the other was close to city limits near Paradise, KS in Russell County where residents were told to be prepared to evacuate at any time.
Back up in central and north central Nebraska, snow began to fall with central Nebraska receiving alerts of a snow squall warning at 4:30pm.
With the wide range of weather events Nebraska saw on Wednesday, Thies said this is not the first time we have had tornadoes in December. Thies recalled Christmas Day of 2016 with high winds much like Wednesday where tornadoes developed as well. But in terms of the overall impacts from Wednesday, it was a day of firsts for the National Weather Service in Hastings.
You can hear Thies full interview with RRN’s Tyler Cavalli below:
