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Large hail, wind, rain blow through Central Nebraska
Numerous areas in Central Nebraska were hit with large hail, as well as damage from straight-line winds, late Wednesday afternoon and early evening as several severe super-cell thunderstorms tracked from northwest to southeast through the area.

According to the National Weather Service in Hastings, golf-ball size hail of 1.75 inches in diameter hit Arcadia, Loup City, Dannebrog, Kearney, Riverdale and one mile north of Elyria.

Loup City resident Lois Molt said she drove from her home to Ravenna on Thursday morning and noticed hail damage to cornfields south of Loup City. Molt said she also heard reports of broken windows in Aradia, although she was not in Arcadia and could not personally confirm that damage. She said that screens on the windows in her home in Loup City received damage.


Pingpong-ball size hail of 1.5 inches hit the Farwell area, according to the National Weather Service in Hastings, which also received a report of strong winds downing numerous tree limbs and power lines in the Farwell area.

Hail of 1.25 inches in diameter was reported about 10 miles southwest Ord, as well as seven miles north-northwest of Grand Island. Hail of 1-inch in diameter hit one mile west of Eddyville, two miles north of Miller and one mile southeast of Ashton, according to the weather service.

"Fortunately, no tornadoes were reported, despite the fact that some storms also exhibited some modest rotation aloft, as detected by radar," a written report by the National Weather Service in Hastings stated. "The 'main show' of severe storms centered between the hours of 4 p.m. to midnight."

The weather service said some marginally severe storms did hit northern Dawson and Buffalo counties earlier in the day. The weather service report also said many locations received generally 1 inch to 2.5 inches of rain within roughly a 10- to 20-mile-wide corridor, extending along a northwest-to-southeast line running from Ord to St. Paul to Aurora and York.

It added that local pockets of heavier rainfall amounts may have been possible in a few locations in that long corridor.

A total of 2.5 inches of rain was reported just west-northwest of Dannebrog.

Grand Island's Central Nebraska Regional Airport had received 0.85 of inch of rain by shortly after midnight, with the majority of that rain coming between 7:30 and 9 p.m., although the city did receive additional rain later in the evening.

By early Thursday morning, Ord had received 1.07 inches of rain.

The National Weather Service reported that St. Paul received 1.53 inches of rain, with Aurora receiving 1.31 inches and Kearney receiving 1.22 inches of rain at the airport.

Ryan Pfannkuch of the National Weather Service in Hastings said no severe thunderstorm watch was issued because the anticipation was that only a couple of severe thunderstorms might occur in Central Nebraska on Wednesday, while watches are only issued when a widespread outbreak of severe thunderstorms are expected. He said the number of severe thunderstorms that occurred on Wednesday was much more widespread than anticipated.