As we wind down live coverage of the severe weather, click here to follow the latest updates in our recap story. Thank you for following the storms with AccuWeather and be sure to watch the AccuWeather TV Network, check the AccuWeather mobile app for continuing forecasts and stream AccuWeather NOW anytime on our website.
The extreme winds and powerful severe weather system turned fatal on Wednesday evening when the driver of a semi truck was killed in eastern Iowa, Iowa State Patrol said. According to The Associated Press, the truck rolled over on its side after being struck by high winds on U.S. Highway 151. No other details about the driver have been shared yet and no other deaths or injuries have been reported.
High winds and departing airplanes are a generally bad mix, but the severe weather caused more than its share of airport headaches in Kansas City on Wednesday. At Kansas City International, staff members from the Federal Aviation Administration were forced to evacuate the air traffic control (ATC) tower shortly before 6 p.m., local time, due to the dangerous winds.
"KCI Airport is at 'Air Traffic Control (ATC) Zero,'" the airport shared on Twitter. "For their safety FAA staff in the tower cab evacuated. This means there is no Air Traffic Control for flights at the airport. There will likely be diversions and delays. Anticipate 1 hour."
Winds as strong as 67 mph were confirmed at the airport on Wednesday evening, which posed a dangerous situation for the ATC working atop the 256-foot tower. According to KCI's Senior Manager for Marketing and Communications Joe McBride, evacuations from the tower are rare, KSHB reported.
As the sun prepares to rise on the severe weather destruction in the Plains and Midwest, nearly half a million customers will be without their customary electricity on Thursday morning. As of 5:30 a.m. CST, 491,640 residents were without power in the Great Lakes and Midwest regions, according to PowerOutage.us. The state totals were topped by Wisconsin and Michigan, which account for over 300,000 of those outages between the two states combined.
The NWS Storm Prediction Center registered 19 reported tornadoes, all clustered in three Midwestern, on Wednesday. Eighteen of the twisters were reported in Iowa and Nebraska, while the 19th was a "confirmed tornado" in Plainview, Minnesota. Should survey teams confirm the tornado, it will be the state's first December twister.
Tornadoes were also reported in western and central Iowa, areas of the state that had also never seen a December twister. Prior to Wednesday, only two tornado warnings had ever been issued in the state in December – but on Wednesday, over 30 were issued.
Thunderstorms have come to an end in Wisconsin, but strong winds remain. At 3 a.m. CST, Rhinelander, Wisconsin, recorded a wind gust of 76 mph. The gust was strong enough to cause the weather station there to go offline. Damaging winds associated with the earlier thunderstorms combined with widespread strong winds after the storms have caused power outage numbers to skyrocket to over 184,000 in Wisconsin, according to PowerOutage.US. This number may climb further as strong winds continue through the morning.
Although severe weather is now coming to an end, there were numerous tornado warnings issued in Minnesota on Wednesday evening. This was the first time that tornado warnings were issued anywhere within the state during the month of December. The NWS will be doing storm surveys over the next several days to determine if any tornadoes officially touched down, or if damage was caused by wind separate from a tornado. Either way, residents of Minnesota and surrounding states will have days and weeks of cleanup ahead.
Dec. 15, 2021, set the record for the highest number of hurricane-force wind gusts in a single day. A total of 55 such reports were recorded, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. The previous record was 53 on Aug. 10, 2020. The record is impressive, especially given the fact that it occurred in December.
According to PowerOutage.us, Iowa alone has over 100,000 power outages. Although the thunderstorms have moved away from the state, strong winds remain in the wake of the storms. In addition, much colder air is beginning to move into Iowa. Therefore, anyone without heat will need to find ways to stay warm tonight. If using a generator, make sure it is a safe distance away from your house, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
The powerful system over the central U.S. has unleashed impressive wind gusts across the region that have already made their way into the record books. According to the National Weather Service, Des Moines, Iowa, experienced its highest wind gust since 1970 that was not related to a thunderstorm. The 74 mph gust was observed at 8:28 p.m. CST after the line of severe thunderstorms cleared the city. Farther west, a 70 mph wind gust was observed in Omaha, Nebraska, about four hours after thunderstorms swept through the city. Omaha was also experiencing blowing dust kicked up by the powerful winds.
From Oklahoma to Iowa, damaging winds swept across the central U.S. on Dec. 15.
Wednesday's far-reaching weather system knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people across the central U.S., an event that will not soon be forgotten. In Kansas City, a large pane of glass fell several stories and shattered on the street below amid strong winds. Farther north in Lincoln, Nebraska, winds gusted to 93 mph which caused the rain to look more like a snowstorm, limiting visibility to just a few hundred feet. High-profile vehicles had difficulty navigating through the winds with multiple accidents and turnovers reported across the region. Watch the video above to see highlights of the storms from Colorado through Iowa.
It has been a year and four months since Iowa was devastated by a powerful derecho, and those same areas are now experiencing another extreme wind event. The derecho of Aug. 11, 2020, flattened entire fields of corn, snapped trees like they were toothpicks and left behind billions in damage. Several locations clocked wind gusts over 100 mph as the complex of storms blasted through on Iowa in less than six hours. The storms currently sweeping across Iowa are not as powerful as the 2020 derecho, but they are still packing a punch with wind gusts between 60 and 80 mph. Isolated tornadoes have also been reported in the western part of the state.
As the high winds made their way through Kansas on Wednesday, the gusts caused all manner of damage. Video footage showed a Motel 8 sign shaking back and forth in Liberal, Kansas, in the southwest corner of the state about 200 miles west of Wichita and right near the border with the Oklahoma panhandle. The high winds tore shingles off of roofs, ripped down power lines and even had some inflatable front yard Christmas decorations breaking off some funky moves. Watch the video above to see highlights of the wind impacts.
Early Wednesday morning, the AccuWeather forecast team was warning about a fast-moving and powerful line of severe weather that would race eastward across the middle of the nation during the early evening hours. Future radar depictions of the weather system showed that the storm system would be very skinny, but pack a huge punch with powerful winds being the primary threat along with the threat of tornadoes.
A future radar image generated at around 7 a.m. showing what AccuWeather meteorologists expected to play out across the middle of the U.S. during the early evening hours on Dec. 15, 2021.
Looking at the actual AccuWeather radar during the evening, the skinny line of storms indeed materialized almost precisely as predicted. Compare the future radar the image above with a radar image below taken at approximately 7:15 p.m., Central Time on Wednesday. Extraordinarily high wind gusts have wreaked havoc across numerous states, topping out above 100 mph in several places. Several reports of tornadoes had transpired as well as the severe weather event unfolded. Keep an eye on the AccuWeather national weather radar now and at all times here.
A radar image showing a thin line of severe weather moving across the middle of the U.S. at approximately 7:15 p.m., CDT on Dec. 15, 2021.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has tallied over a dozen tornado reports and 250 wind reports across the central U.S. today. Wind gusts across Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Iowa have frequently gusted over 65 mph with peak wind gusts hitting triple digits. However, one of the most impressive storm reports was softball-sized hail measured near Emporia, Kansas. Hailstones this large can cause significant damage to property and cause major injury. The reports will continue to mount through Wednesday night as the storms advance northwestward toward Wisconsin.
Wednesday’s intense winds toppled a number of tractor-trailers and other trucks on highways as a damaging storm swept through the Midwest. One semi-truck overturned on Interstate 80 in Atlantic, Iowa, about 80 miles west of Des Moines. In another rollover crash, two AccuWeather reporters tended to a badly injured driver before medics could arrive on the scene. AccuWeather’s Jillian Angeline said the burst of intense wind lasted about five minutes before temperatures cooled. Also, a trooper with the Missouri State Highway Patrol told a local news station a driver was ejected when strong winds tossed his box truck off the highway. He was flown to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.
The Colorado Springs Fire Department received 635 calls for service within a 5 hour period, the Colorado Springs Fire Department Public Information Office said over Twitter. The calls ranged from fires in homes to grass fires, to downed power lines due to toppled trees. The department even had the roof blown from its headquarters amid strong winds. “We were able to respond to all emergencies,” the department said. Colorado Springs recorded wind gusts of up to 100 mph on Wednesday.
Five states clocked dangerous wind gusts of up to 107 mph Wednesday as a fierce windstorm moved through the region producing widespread damage and power outages. Top wind gusts of 100 to 107 mph were reported in Colorado (Lamar, Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs); 103 mph in the Taos Ski area, New Mexico and 100 mph winds in Russell, Kansas, according to National Weather Service data. “Today’s event is causing hurricane wind gusts over an area in the U.S. larger than any individual hurricane impacted this season,” said Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather director of forecast operations.
Des Moines, Iowa, demolished its high-temperature record for December 15 when the mercury soared into the mid-70s on Wednesday. At 3 p.m., local time, the temperature was sitting at 74 degrees, some 15 degrees above its previous record of 59 set in 2002. With the temperature reaching into the 70s, Des Moines also shattered its all-time high December temperature record, which was 69 degrees last reached in 2017. The mid-70s was a far cry from the coldest temperature ever recorded in Des Moines on Dec. 15. Back in 1901 on this day, the mercury bottomed out at 18 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
AccuWeather had been forecasting an unusual mid-December warmup for the middle of the nation, and likely many records will have fallen when the final temperature tally is in. The unusually warm weather set the stage for what has turned out to be a wild weather system streaking across the country and kicking up powerful wind gusts. Storms were expected to blast into the Des Moines area right around rush hour, local time. In fact, Des Moines was one of many places in Iowa under a tornado watch during the early evening on Wednesday.
Correction: A previous version of this entry incorrectly said the Des Moines temperature record was 25 degrees above the previous record.
Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power across the center of the country Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.US. Nearly 300,000 customers were without power Wednesday across a swath of states from New Mexico to Iowa. Wind gusts of up to 80 mph were clocked in Phillips and Rooks County, Kansas, around 1 p.m. CST, and gusts of up to 85 mph were recorded in Hall and Hamilton County, Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. Wind gusts of up to 92 mph were recorded in Lancaster County, Nebraska, around 3:45 p.m. CST. Wind had reportedly damaged a parked aircraft at Santa Fe Airport, and a downed radio tower took out power lines for the northern half of the town of Taos, New Mexico, according to reports from the NWS.
Trooper Ben with the Kansas Highway Patrol issued a warning to residents who were thinking about traveling across the state later this evening or overnight. “Stay home! Do not drive! If you don’t have to be out here, don’t be out here,” he said in a video, although it was hard to hear his message with strong winds howling in the background. The trooper recorded the video along a road where there was a truck and a tipped trailer off the shoulder. “Stay home, be safe,” he added.
A radar-confirmed tornado tracked just west of Omaha, Nebraska, shortly before 4 p.m. CST Wednesday, forcing a local National Weather Service (NWS) office to seek shelter. Meteorologists at the NWS Omaha office, located west of the city in Valley, Nebraska, had to seek shelter as the tornado tracked close to the building. Luckily, the building and the workers inside were safe and could return to service after the tornado risk passed.
NOAA’s GOES-East weather satellite captured this image of the storm system over the central U.S. on Wednesday afternoon shortly before sunset. Severe thunderstorms can be seen over eastern Kansas and eastern Nebraska, but the brown clouds over central and southwestern Kansas are actually dust being picked up by extreme winds. When this satellite image was captured, winds across this portion of Kansas were howling between 55 mph and 100 mph. Visibility was also limited due to the dust, complicating travel even further.
Wind gusts of over 70 mph are rapidly driving a fast-moving brush fire approaching Guymon, Oklahoma, Brandon Clement reported Wednesday. Evacuations were underway for some residents in Guymon Wednesday afternoon after Texas County Emergency Management office issued an alert around 2 p.m., local time, indicating a wildfire west of the city “will threaten the western edge,” News 9 reported. Guymon residents west of Sunset Lane and Country Road 30 have been asked to evacuate to the north or south of the city. All other residents are advised to stay on alert.
A derecho is one of the most extreme forms of severe weather, causing widespread strong winds over an extended area that could leave behind billions of dollars in damage. While Wednesday’s severe weather event is taking shape differently than a classic summertime derecho, it could meet the criteria, which is wind gusts of 58 mph or greater over at least 240 miles, according to the National Weather Service.
There may be some debate over whether or not to call this event a derecho, but the impacts will be similar regardless. “Call it what you will, but the severe storms with high wind gusts will form a long, skinny line that will progress quickly to the south and east Wednesday night and into Thursday,” AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said. “It will definitely have derecho-like winds and forward speed, and it appears it will go the distance, so it would seem the criteria will be met.”
A line of severe thunderstorms has taken shape from central Nebraska to central Kansas and is racing northeastward at a speed of over 60 mph. Multiple locations have already reported wind gusts over 80 mph as the storms passed through, including Davenport, Giltner and Grand Island, Nebraska. Tornadoes may quickly spin up along this line of storms as it advances toward Iowa.
Powerful winds started to kick up in the center of the country Wednesday afternoon, knocking out power across states like Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. Over 90,000 customers were without power by early Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.US. Wind gusts of up to 80 mph were clocked in Phillips and Rooks County, Kansas, around 1 p.m. CST, and gusts of up to 85 mph were recorded in Hall and Hamilton County, Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. Wind had reportedly damaged a parked aircraft at Santa Fe Airport, and a downed radio tower took out power lines for the northern half of the town of Taos, New Mexico, according to reports from the NWS.
A tornado watch has been issued from northeastern Kansas to southern Minnesota as severe thunderstorms begin to organize over the region. The National Weather Service stated the possibility of “a couple intense tornadoes” and “widespread damaging winds” with the storms that track through this region. Omaha, Nebraska, Des Moines, Iowa, and areas just south of Minneapolis are included in the tornado watch. “These storms are happening in a place where tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are unprecedented in mid-December,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. “Call your family and friends in these areas to make sure they are aware of this threat and ready to take action if warnings are issued for their community.”
