(National Weather Service: Omaha & Des Moines) – The National Weather Service had forecast a chance for “Non-severe” thunderstorms in western Iowa Friday evening, but those storms were more than that for parts of southwest Iowa and across the river in southeast Nebraska.
At around 5:44-p.m., a trained storm spotter reported a brief tornado touched down near Murray, NE, and had the photographic evidence to support their observation. At 5:46-p.m., a confirmed tornado was located over Beaver Lake, NE or about 13 miles south of Offutt AFB, moving northeast at 20 mph.
At 5:47-p.m., the Weather Service in Omaha issued a tornado warning for east central Cass County in Nebraska, and southwestern Mills County in Iowa, as the slow-moving storm made its way across the Missouri River into Iowa. The warning polygon included an area from just north of Bartlett and Tabor northward, to Pacific Junction, but it stayed primarily over the rural areas of Mills County. The warning was cancelled at around 6:25-p.m. when the cell that prompted the warning began to break-up.
There were several funnel cloud reports or rotating cloud activity associated with tornadic development, elsewhere far southwest Iowa. Area residents sent photos of wall clouds and other ominous weather phenomenon to TV stations in Omaha
Just before 6-p.m., a storm chaser in Monona County reported a funnel cloud six-miles northeast of Whiting, and had the photos to prove it, but they could not confirm the funnel had any contact with the ground. About 45-minutes earlier, a funnel cloud dropped from the clouds northeast of Oto, Iowa. Spotters saw the funnel cloud, which briefly touched the ground and became a weak tornado.
There were no reports of injuries or damage associated with the severe weather.
