Tornadoes and softball-sized hail strike Iowa, Nebraska
A small but intense cluster of thunderstorms struck eastern Nebraska and western Iowa Thursday evening, with destructive winds up to 86 mph, grapefruit-sized hail and multiple tornadoes.
Just northwest of Omaha in Irvington, Nebraska, drone video showed several homes missing their roofs, with debris scattered around them. The Irvington Fire Department said on Facebook that "patients were transported," but it's unclear how many people were injured.
A tornado emergency, the most severe type of tornado warning, was issued for Essex, Iowa, at 8:51 p.m. CDT. The wind snapped power poles and trees just west of the town.
AccuWeather Meteorologist and Storm Chaser Tony Laubach's car windshield was smashed in by baseball-sized hail just outside of Fremont, Nebraska, as he was reporting for the AccuWeather Network.
Softball-sized hail shredded the siding off a nearby home, leaving behind a trail of splintered panels and exposed insulation and walls.
In York, Nebraska, a bystander was caught in a dusty gustnado. A gustnado is a type of tornado that forms when the edge of the downdraft of a severe thunderstorm -- a gust front -- causes the air to spin, from the ground up. A gustnado does not connect to a cloud as it would with a larger, supercell tornado.
A wind gust of 86 mph was clocked at Coburg, Iowa, while an 82-mph gust was recorded in Fremont, Nebraska. The National Weather Service will investigate the damage to determine where the tornadoes fall on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
Additional rounds of severe thunderstorms are predicted through the weekend, threatening areas from Texas to Ohio.
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