Hurricane force winds . . . tornados . . . prairie fires . . . all part of December in the Midwest ? ? ? A major storm for Nebraska on Wednesday, Dec. 15 may be long remembered, but area residents consider themselves lucky as property damage was not wide spread. The South Central Public Power District lost a total of 22 poles in its distribution system. They were widespread across their system with the majority of them being in the Nuckolls and Webster county area. The wind damage to one such power pole is shown in this picture. (Photo courtesy of SCPPD)
The 2021 Autumn weather in Nebraska has been very nice. No rain, but
mild temperatures and not a lot of wind.
However, that all came to a change last Wednesday, Dec. 15.
"A storm to remember," is one phrase that seemed to be popular after
the day, and night passed.
The "Weather Reporters" seemed to do a great job in their prediction of
the storm, but it was an event a person had to 'experience' to fully appreciate what was happening.
This reporter isn't sure of records, but many people will remember this storm. It came and inflicted a goodly amount of damage without major population centers being hurt.
The storm seemed to originate in south central Nebraska, but it soon involved a much larger area including neighboring states. There was 'hail' in areas, but the amount of moisture left by the storm was little, if any.
Wednesday started much like most other recent days, fairly calm and mild. However, weather forecasters warned everyone the storm was on its way and would appear sometime after noon.
Temperatures dropped by some 36 degrees which helped fuel the wind. Nobody was sure, but before the afternoon was over, the skies turned that sickly yellow/brown color and the TV and radio reported tornado activity in the area. Smoke was noted in the air and nobody knew from where that was coming from. As darkness covered the state, some areas north of our area experienced some hail, and . . . the wind seemed to increase in speed. Before too long the storm seemed to be passing southcentral Nebraska and was moving east to Lincoln and Omaha and Iowa.
This reporter checked with the South Central Public Power District (SCPPD) about the damage to its system. The Power District covers much of Nuckolls, Clay, Adams and Webster counties.
Damage in the District's area included the following:
• 200 Meters were affected (examples included were homes, businesses, irrigation systems, etc.).
• 22 poles needed replacing (4 or 5 in Clay County, remainder in Nuckolls and Webster).
• Most all poles lost were individual poles. The most in any consecutive line was three.
• The NPPD system west of Pauline fell on the top of the SCPPD lines. South Central had a fix to their lines quickly, but NPPD and SCPPD had a
three hour outage on Saturday for NPPD to repair their lines and SCPPD
to make permanent their repairs.
• SCPPD reported power was restored to all of their customers by 10:30
Wednesday night.
The National Weather Service gave a report on the storm as well. They noted at least nine tornados touched down in south central Nebraska and north central Kansas. Six were in the area as follows: Five miles north of Minden on the ground 11 miles; near the Franklin-Webster county line south of Campbell, on the ground for 14 miles; west of Blue Hill 15 miles to west of Glenvil; north of Hastings 8.6 miles to south of Doniphan; south of Doniphan on the ground 7.3 miles; southeast of Giltner to Aurora on the ground 11 miles.
Reports were heard that a prairie fire in Kansas was a serious threat. A large number of wildlife and cattle were reported lost to the fire. However, we have no confirmation of this.
There were no reports of human life loss. Property damage ranged from center pivot irrigation systems damaged; tree and fence damages.
The day, however, will be one to remember. For those wondering. Wind
speed reached and exceeded the 100 miles per hour level, both in the tornado area and in the straight line wind areas.
Just in case you're interested, hurricanes of a category 1 intensity begin with 75 mph winds and go up to the 100mph level. Category 2 hurricanes go from 100 to 110 mph.
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