Severe weather hits Montgomery County early

It was only a couple of weeks ago when Montgomery County had its first brush with measurable snow for the season.
Now, the county has seen another first: its first brush with severe weather took place on Tuesday of last week. Katie Gross is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Omaha/Valley Neb. Office. Gross said the storm was a bit unusual for February.
“It is definitely early, but we are kind of transitioning to that springtime kind of weather, so it’s not completely unheard of. But yeah, it’s a little early in the season for it,” Gross said.
Gross said there were some factors that led to the surprise early thunderstorm.
“It was basically just a little boundary that moved through the region that kind of sparked off these little thunderstorms. There was a combination of the temperatures that were overhead that caused them to have strong gusty winds that fell out of them as the rainfall came down. The sudden shift in temperatures certainly did help, but it was more of just a springtime kind of atmosphere where it’s the warm air rising above the cold,” commented Gross.
The highest gust of wind from the storm was recorded in southwest Iowa, though not in Montgomery County.
 “Two miles northwest of Silver City in Mills County had the strongest winds and that was 61 miles an hour. A few locations near Beatrice, Neb. had anywhere from 50 to 58 miles an hour. Springfield and Papillion Neb. both had about 50 to 51 mile an hour gusts,” advised Gross.
Right now, Gross said it doesn’t look like the area has a whole lot in the forecast for significant weather, with conditions remaining dry. Also, even though we’ve had an early thunderstorm, Gross said it’s not an indicator of things to come.
“It looks like we’ll probably still see some more fluctuations between the warmer days and colder days. It’s not really a definite thing that we’re going to have more severe weather this season just because it started a little bit earlier,” stated Gross.