National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Critical Fire Weather Conditions in the Plains; Heavy Snow in the Sierra and Northern Rockies

Gusty winds and warm, very dry conditions will lead to a Critical Risk of fire weather across much of the High Plains through Thursday. A Pacific storm system will bring strong winds and precipitation from the Pacific Northwest to the Northern Rockies, with heavy mountain snow in the Sierra-Nevada and northern Rockies. Heavy snow will continue in the northern Rockies on Thursday. Read More >

Overview

From the evening of May 20th through mid afternoon on May 21st, several waves of thunderstorms produced tornadoes, damaging winds with gusts up to 90 mph, hail up to tennis-ball size, and extremely heavy rainfall, which resulted in considerable flash flooding and river flooding.

Six tornadoes (5 EF0 and 1 EF1) occurred with a fast-moving line of thunderstorms that moved through eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa during the early morning hours on the 21st. An additional 4 tornadoes occurred with a second round of thunderstorms (supercells) that formed over far eastern Nebraska and tracked through southwest Iowa during the late morning and early afternoon hours on the 21st. 

Image
Radar loop from 4 PM on May 20th through 3 PM on May 21st
nws logo Media use of NWS Web News Stories is encouraged!
Please acknowledge the NWS as the source of any news information accessed from this site.
nws logo