High winds of 30 to 40 mph with a few gusts to around 60 mph occurred across portions of western and north central Nebraska during the afternoon and evening hours on March 14th. Peak wind gusts reached 60 mph or higher at the Imperial, Broken Bow and Valentine ASOS stations.
Every event with a place to put it; 3 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS LBF wrote it up.
High winds of 30 to 40 mph with a few gusts to around 60 mph occurred across portions of western and north central Nebraska during the afternoon and evening hours on March 14th. Peak wind gusts reached 60 mph or higher at the Imperial, Broken Bow and Valentine ASOS stations.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS North Platte, NE wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Mar 14, 5:30 AM CST, 4 hours 30 minutes earlier. Its key messages:
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service North Platte NE 630 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 .KEY MESSAGES... - A dynamic storm system tracks through the area today bringing wind gusts around 60 mph for the whole forecast area. High Wind Warnings are in effect for the entire local area. - Periodic rain and even a few thunderstorms are expected through the daytime Friday as the storm system crosses to the southeast. As temperatures fall, a transition to snow is likely tonight into early Saturday with narrow, more intense bands of snow capable of quick accumulations and significant visibility restrictions in strong winds potentially leading to travel impacts. - Fire weather concerns return Saturday into early next week. Confidence on Saturday remains limited due to the threat of precipitation but increased concerns are likely Monday with possible headlines necessary. && .SHORT TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/... Issued at 358 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 Early this morning, broad southeasterly flow is firmly in place for areas east of Highway 83. This is helping maintain mild overnight temperatures with many locations reading in the low 40s to middle 50s further east. This is occurring east of a developing surface low forming over northeast Colorado. Friday into Saturday...Mid-level negative tilt troughing will eject out of the Four Corners region, lifting north and east over the Central and Southern Plains. As this occurs, a deep vertically stacked low pressure system will translate east across Kansas. NAEFS guidance hints at record low geopotential heights for the surface up through h5 by midday. As a strong mid-level jet pivots across the southern periphery of the main h5 trough, forcing for ascent will ramp up markedly due to increasing upper-level divergence and strong height falls. As the surface low continues to deepen, kinematic response will ramp up due to increasing pressure gradients. Latest NAM12 solution depicts pressure rises reaching 2-3 hPa per hour by this afternoon. Cold air advection will quickly peak behind the passing cold front and should help allow for efficient momentum transfers of stronger gusts to the surface. Forecast soundings depict deep mixing by midday as flow off the surface responds the deepening system to the east. Am concerned that wind gusts may not peak until late afternoon but opted to maintain similar times with inherited headlines to limit confusion. Wind gusts are likely to peak by early evening but remain fairly steady overnight into early Saturday. Many locations will likely see peak gusts near 60 to 65 mph. Given the north to northwesterly direction, expecting strong crosswinds to pose issues for east-west routes to include Interstate 80. While temperatures should remain on the warm side with highs in the 50s and 60s for most and perhaps low 70s for a few in our eastern zones, the colder air will quickly invade tonight and drop temperatures quickly. This will set the area up for a brief window of wintery precipitation, of which details of this will follow. Regarding precipitation beginning Friday...strong forcing for ascent including broad synoptic lift aloft and more confined mesoscale lift will allow multiple areas/rounds of moderate to potentially heavy precipitation within a fairly broad shield of scattered to widespread light precipitation. Initially, warm air advection ahead of the developing low will be replaced by more focused regions of fgen/deformation on the northwest periphery of the low. Given the aforemention temperatures, expectations are for precipitation to largely favor rain during the daytime. A few thunderstorms are also possible as lapse rates steepen overtop a stalled surface front from central Nebraska up through southeast South Dakota. Instability will be modest at best with MUCAPE values likely remaining below 500 j/kg. Shear will be limiting as well and so the threat for severe weather appears quite low. As a pseudo-triple point sets up across our eastern zones, forcing will allow for rapid increase in rain and thunderstorm coverage for central Nebraska. Further west, a secondary area of increased precipitation potential will likely set up in an area of strong mid-level deformation. This should produce a north to south oriented band of heavier precipitation. This will occur in an area devoid of instability but with a cooling thermal profile that should promote at least a rain/snow mix if not all snow. This band should remain fairly progressive, shifting west to east through the evening into early Saturday. Similar to NAM output, HREF probabilities suggest snow rates may be enough within the strong northwest winds to promote sharp visibility restrictions. Deterministic HRRR shows fairly expansive areas of < 1SM visibility co-located with the precipitation but HREF probabilities of < 1SM visibility are closer to 50/50. Believe some travel impacts will be seen in these areas and so caution is advised to folks with plans to be out. As the low continues to lift north and east into the middle Missouri Valley, forcing will shift across northern Nebraska. Snow probabilities will quickly follow and many locations north of Interstate 80 likely to see at least brief snow. Additional areas of moderate intensity snowfall within the expected strong winds could lead to additional quick accumulations and visibility issues over north central Nebraska as the moisture tongue wraps around the system and overspreads our northeast zones. All said and done, the threat for snow should exit to the east by midday Saturday. Total snowfall amounts should remain less than 1" for most if not all locations. Total QPF for the event will vary greatly from location to location with the heaviest amounts forecast across central Nebraska where the late afternoon thunderstorm development should allow a few locations to exceed 0.25" and possibly even approach 0.50". Saturday...Strong winds will persist through the overnight and morning hours Saturday. This is due to the close proximity of the deep system to our east. Flow off the surface will remain quite strong with NAEFS suggesting h85 and h7 exceeding the 90th percentile through Saturday morning. BUFKIT soundings support this idea but quickly wane momentum transfer gusts as the morning progresses. Flow off the surface will wane as cold air advection decreases and the surface pressure gradient relaxes. Speeds should fall below High Wind criteria but remain gusty with speeds nearing 45 mph. Did briefly consider a Fire Weather Watch for Zone 209 following collaboration with neighboring offices. Opted against this for now due to uncertainty in how expansive wetting rains will be should they occur. Aggressive mixing guidance also limits spatial and temporal coverage of critical humidity levels so opted to hold off until confidence increased one way or the other. Afternoon highs will range from the 40s to low 50s north to south. These values are actually slightly below normal for mid-March and with lingering mid- level clouds, believe these could still be aggressive within northerly low-level flow. Surface high pressure will settle south through the evening and into early Sunday. This should allows skies to become mostly clear and overnight lows to fall into the low 20s with light and variable winds. && .LONG TERM /SUNDAY THROUGH THURSDAY/... Issued at 358 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 Sunday and Monday...Dry weather returns and temperatures moderate thanks to relatively zonal flow on top of low-amplitude ridging. Sunday sees a return to upper 50s to lower 60s. Though dew points will see a slight uptick from 24 hours prior, the above normal temperatures will again support near-critical fire weather conditions for Sunday. Humidity values may not reach criteria but any upward trend in forecast temperatures would potentially warrant fire weather headline consideration. Further warming is expected Wednesday as h85 temperatures approach the low teens or climb above the 90th percentile in NAEFS guidance. Westerly flow will again be strong and peak gusts will favor the Sandhills. With forecast highs reaching 70s to near 80F, humidity minimums appear likely to fall into the middle to low teens west of Highway 281. If the current forecast holds, fire weather headlines may be necessary for portions of the Sandhills into the eastern Nebraska Panhandle. Will continue to message this potential and monitor trends in the coming days. Tuesday and Wednesday...our brief dry spell will quickly end as we approach the middle of the week. Low-amplitude ridging will dominate the Southern Plains but will gradually shift east into the lower- Mississippi Valley as the next upper-level disturbance approaches from the west. Ensembles are in good agreement in advertising a neutral tilt trough crossing the central Rockies and entering the Central Plains sometime in the Tuesday/Wednesday time frame. Lee cyclogenesis will quickly ramp up with another deep surface low taking shape off the Front Range and quickly translating east. At this range, fairly large spreads in placement and timing of low track casts some doubt on precise timing of impacts. This is largely due to differing evolutions of upper-level features. Either way, both primary extended ensembles paint 50% probabilities of seeing 0.10" or greater liquid equivalent precipitation across at least portions of western and north central Nebraska. Overall thinking though is that a deep surface low tracking through the region will draw in colder air and reintroduce winter weather concerns to the area. Should current output from deterministic solutions come to fruition, a fairly high impact event appears probable for western Nebraska. Uncertainty lingers, especially considering daytime temperatures are likely to remain well above freezing. Even lower quartile values from the NBM suggest afternoon highs climbing above the freezing mark with mean values running in the 40s. All this to say, duration of winter weather impacts remains the greatest question at this time but storm setup appears to mimic the event from 03/14-15 with a deep low producing strong winds and precipitation, some of which falls in the form of snow, across much of the area. Folks should continue to monitor later forecasts as confidence increases regarding impacts. Thursday and beyond...as longwave troughing tracks into the Great Lakes region, amplified ridging will develop upstream across the Great Basin. Flow will flatten as ridging shift south and east across the central and southern Rockies by late week. Dry weather is anticipated as a result. Forecast temperatures from the model blend hug the colder end of the ensemble envelope. Deterministic values for Thursday and Friday come in closer and even below the 25th percentile. This suggests that later forecasts may require an increasing trend with forecast temperatures. The going forecast calls for seasonable temperatures but the overall pattern favors overachieving values given positive height anomalies and westerly downsloping winds so do expect some upward trends with subsequent forecasts. && .AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/... Issued at 629 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 Mid to high cloud cover persists over western and north central Nebraska this morning, ahead of a powerful low pressure center that brings strong wind gusts today. Northerly wind gusts will spread over the region from west to east, with peak gusts at or above 50 knots at times. Ceilings remain VFR throughout most of the day, however, as precipitation moves in later, ceilings are expected to drop to MVFR and IFR across the region. Still monitoring the potential for LIFR conditions across northern Nebraska as the precipitation switches over to snow tonight, as heavier snowfall rates and strong winds may lead to rapid decreases in visibility. For now, confidence remains low, so will omit LIFR from KVTN for now. Winds remain gusty overnight and during tomorrow morning, however ceilings are likely to improve and return to VFR overnight as precipitation tracks to the east. && .LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... High Wind Warning until 1 PM CDT /noon MDT/ Saturday for NEZ004-005-022>025-035>037-056>059-069-070-094. High Wind Warning from 1 PM this afternoon to 1 PM CDT Saturday for NEZ006>010-026>029-038-071. && SHORT TERM...NMJ LONG TERM...NMJ AVIATION...Richie
Hazardous Weather Outlook National Weather Service North Platte NE 1028 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 NEZ004>010-022>029-035>038-056>059-069>071-094-151530- Sheridan-Eastern Cherry-Keya Paha-Boyd-Brown-Rock-Holt-Garden-Grant- Hooker-Thomas-Blaine-Loup-Garfield-Wheeler-Arthur-McPherson-Logan- Custer-Deuel-Keith-Perkins-Lincoln-Chase-Hayes-Frontier- Western Cherry- 1028 AM CDT Fri Mar 14 2025 /928 AM MDT Fri Mar 14 2025/ This Hazardous Weather Outlook is for portions of western and north central Nebraska. .DAY ONE...This afternoon and tonight. A strong storm system brings multiple weather impacts across western and north central Nebraska today through tomorrow. Strong, northerly wind gusts will spread from west to east late this morning through this evening, with gusts up to 60 miles per hour at times. A High Wind Warning is in effect this morning through Saturday afternoon. This system also brings a chance of rain and thunderstorms, though severe thunderstorms are not expected at this time. Precipitation will transition to snow late tonight, with accumulating snowfall possible north of Highway 2. Though accumulations are expected to be light, strong wind gusts and higher intensity bursts of snow may lead to slick roads and reduced visibility. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...Saturday through Thursday. Strong winds persist Saturday morning and afternoon, with gusts up to 50 miles per hour tapering off by mid afternoon. Near critical to critical fire weather conditions are likely to persist through Monday, due to a combination of gusty winds, low relative humidity, and dry fuels. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... Spotter activation is not expected at this time.
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
3 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
The Broken Bow ASOS recorded a peak wind gust of 61 mph at 926 pm CST. Northwest winds of 30 to 40 mph and gusty occurred across Custer County during the late morning, through the afternoon into the evening hours.
The Valentine ASOS recorded a peak wind gust of 60 mph at 524 pm CST. Northwest winds of 30 to 40 mph and gusty occurred across Eastern Cherry County during the late morning, through the afternoon into the evening hours.
The Imperial ASOS recorded a peak wind gust of 62 mph at 236 pm MST. Northwest winds of 30 to 40 mph and gusty occurred across Chase County during the late morning, through the afternoon into the evening hours.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Nebraska in 2025Every state in 2025This day in weather historyWarnings in Nebraska, March 2025
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 1248427, 1248434, 1248425.