Powerful winds rock Midwest — at least 5 killed
OMAHA, Neb. — At least five people died as a powerful and extremely unusual storm system swept across the Great Plains and Midwest amid unseasonably high temperatures, spawning hurricane-force winds and possible tornadoes in Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
In southeastern Minnesota, Olmsted County Sheriff ’s Lt. Lee Rossman said a 65-year-old man was killed Wednesday night when a 40-foot tree blew onto him outside his home. In southwestern Kansas, blinding dust kicked up by the storms Wednesday led to two separate crashes that killed three people, Kansas Highway Patrol trooper Mike Racy said. And in eastern Iowa, a semitrailer was struck by high winds and rolled onto its side Wednesday evening, killing the driver, the Iowa State Patrol confirmed.
The storm shifted 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 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 on record in December. The small community of Hartland, Minn., might have been the hardest hit, with a reported 35 to 40 homes sustaining minor damage and a few businesses severely damaged, county Emergency Management Director Rich Hall said.
The destructive weather system developed amid unprecedented warmth for December in the Plains and northern states. That included temperatures that rose to 70 degrees across southwestern Wisconsin on Wednesday evening. The Weather Company historian Chris Burt compared the heat to that of a “warm July evening.”
The winds knocked down trees, tree limbs and nearly 150 power lines in northern and western Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
There were more than 20 tornado reports Wednesday in the Plains states, scattered mostly through eastern Nebraska and Iowa, based on preliminary reports to the Storm Prediction Center. The storm system led to the most reports of hurricane-force wind gusts — 75 mph or higher — on any day in the U.S. since 2004, the center said.
The governors of Kansas and Iowa declared states of emergency.