As a powerful, nearly vertically-stacked closed low pressure passed directly over the area on this Sunday, a few brief EF0 tornadoes touched down in Sherman and Valley Counties at mid-day, while later in the afternoon and evening strong northwest gradient wind gusts of 50-60 MPH buffeted much of the 24-county area.
Although tornadic activity was originally not anticipated on this day, it ended up being a fairly classic cold-core mid level low pressure system event. Factoring into this development was very strong low level vorticity associated with a 988 millibar surface low in central Nebraska, which teamed with meager-but-sufficient surface based CAPE of around 200 J/kg to spawn a small supercell storm that tracked from southwest Sherman County across southern and eastern Valley County, before departing the local area to the northeast. The first EF0 tornado struck a farmstead between Litchfield and the Custer County line just before 12 PM CDT, destroying a metal outbuilding and doing minor damage to a home. Less than an hour later, another brief tornado set down southeast of Ord, with no damage reported. Once this lone tornadic storm moved out of the area, cooler and more stable air quickly rushed in behind the departing surface low, ending the severe weather threat.
As the afternoon and evening wore on, northwest winds ramped up on the backside of the low as it tracked into northwest Iowa by sunset. Several automated sensors recorded sustained winds of 30-40 MPH and gusts to at least 50 MPH. Between 8 PM and 1230 AM CDT, 58-59 MPH gusts were recorded at the Grand Island, Ord and Aurora airports.