OMAHA, Neb.– Residents of Omaha, Nebraska, woke up early Tuesday morning to blaring weather sirens and widespread power outages as heavy rain, high winds and large hail pummeled the area and moved east to threaten more of the Midwest.
More than 10,000 customers were without power in and around Omaha, and the deluge of more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain in less than two hours flooded basements and submerged cars in low-lying areas.
Television station KETV showed videos of several vehicles being overtaken by rushing water on a low-lying street in north-central Omaha and firefighters arriving to rescue people inside.
Although officials had not confirmed any tornadoes in the area, there were confirmed reports of hurricane-force winds, National Weather Service meteorologist Becky Kern said.
“We measured a wind gust of 90 miles per hour near Columbus,” Kern said. Columbus is located about 90 miles west of Omaha.
Iowa was in the crosshairs of the storms, with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center giving most of the state a high chance of severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong tornadoes later in the afternoon and evening.
The storms follow days of extreme weather that have battered much of the central part of the country. High winds, heavy hail and tornadoes tore through parts of Oklahoma and Kansas late Sunday, damaging homes and injuring two in Oklahoma. Another round of storms swept across Colorado and western Nebraska on Monday evening and saw the city of Yuma, Colorado, blanketed in hail, turning streets into rivers of water and ice.
Last week, deadly storms hit the Houston region of Texas, killing at least seven people. Those storms knocked out power for hundreds of thousands for days on Thursday, leaving Texans in the dark and without air conditioning during hot and humid weather, and the hurricane’s winds reduced businesses and other buildings to rubble and shattered glass in downtown skyscrapers.
The storms continued their progress through the Midwest on Tuesday and were expected to bring many of the same high winds, heavy rain and large hail to Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and part of northern Missouri, said Bob Oravec, chief forecaster at National Weather Service. .
“The best chance for severe weather is large hail and high winds, but there is also a lower chance of tornadoes,” Oravec said.
He said the system is expected to turn south on Wednesday and bring more severe weather to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri.
