OMAHA, Neb.—One person died in Iowa as a powerful storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably warm temperatures, bringing hurricane-force wind gusts and spawning reported tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota in a weather outbreak experts described as extremely unusual for December.
storm was shifting north of the Great Lakes into Canada on Thursday, with high winds, snow, and hazardous conditions continuing in the upper Great Lakes region, the National Weather Service said. More than 400,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Thursday morning in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
A tornado was reported in southern Minnesota on Wednesday and, if confirmed, would be the state’s first ever in December. small community of Hartland, Minnesota, might have been the hardest hit, with a reported 35 to 40 homes sustaining minor damage while a few businesses were severely damaged, said county Emergency Management Director Rich Hall. Several barns were down and roofs were blown off some sheds, he added.
destructive weather system developed amid unprecedented warmth for December in the Plains and northern states. That included temperatures that rose to 70 degrees Fahrenheit across southwestern Wisconsin around 8 p.m. Wednesday—what Weather Company historian Chris Burt described as what would be a typical “warm July evening.”
“I can say with some confidence that this event (the heat and tornadoes) is among the most (if not THE most) anomalous weather event ever on record for the Upper Midwest,” Burt wrote in a Facebook post.
winds knocked down trees, tree limbs, and nearly 150 power lines in northern and western Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. In the western Michigan village of Fruitport, high winds peeled back a portion of Edgewood Elementary School’s roof, leading officials to close all district schools Thursday.
In eastern Iowa, a semitrailer struck by high winds Wednesday evening rolled onto its side on southbound U.S. Highway 151, killing the driver, the Iowa State Patrol said.
re were more than 20 tornado reports Wednesday in the Plains states, scattered through eastern Nebraska and Iowa, based on preliminary reports to the Storm Prediction Center. day also saw the most reports of hurricane-force wind gusts—75 mph or higher—of any day since 2004, the center said.
“To have this number of damaging wind storms at one time would be unusual anytime of year,” said Brian Barjenbruch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska. “But to have this happen in December is really abnormal.”
system came on the heels of devastating tornadoes last weekend that cut a path through states including Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, and Kentucky, killing more than 85 people.
On Wednesday, there were at least 59 reports of hurricane-force wind gusts, which exceeded the 53 recorded on Aug. 10, 2020, when a rare derecho wind storm struck Iowa, the Storm Prediction Center said. destruction on Wednesday, however, was far less severe than what Iowa saw from the 2020 derecho, which caused billions of dollars of damage.
strong winds also whipped up dust that reduced visibility to zero west of Wakeeney, Kansas, the state Department of Transportation said, and caused at least four semitrailers to blow over. Kansas officials closed Interstate 70 from the Colorado border to Salina, as well as all state highways in nine counties in northwest Kansas.
That dust and smoke from various wildfires in Kansas was carried north by the storm and concentrated over parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa that led to a dramatic drop in air quality in those areas late Wednesday and a recommendation from the weather service for people to stay indoors. smell of smoke from the fires also spawned a glut of calls to already-taxed emergency dispatchers in Omaha and other communities from people reporting the smell of smoke.
system blew into the Plains from Colorado, sending gale-force winds across a swath from New Mexico to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and upper Michigan. weather service recorded a gust of 107 mph Wednesday morning at Lamar, Colorado, and gusts of 100 mph in Russell, Kansas.
By Margery A. Beck and Margaret Stafford
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