Power poles east of Polk on highway 66 were down during the storm.
An unseasonable bout of weather caused swaths of damage across the state of Nebraska on Wednesday, December 15th. The outbreak of weather was officially declared a serial Derecho per the National Weather Service. This Derecho is the first ever declared Derecho for the month of December. A Derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to the strength of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term “straight-line wind damage” sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.
Many weather records were broken with this storm system. The first being record high temperatures were recorded across the state of Nebraska. This storm system also broke the record for number of tornadoes in a day for the month of December. The previous record was three set back on Christmas Day 2016. As of today, the total number of tornados recorded in Nebraska from the outbreak was 27. Many were EF0 and EF1 tornadoes. The total number of tornadoes produced by this storm system was 65.
Polk County as of today had 2 confirmed tornadoes. The Kronborg/Hordville Tornado started in Hamilton County and worked its way northeast rapidly. This tornado crossed highway 66 two miles west of Polk. Just before it lifted north of town, it took down a large metal building. Its path was about twelve miles long.
The Eastern Polk Area Tornado started southeast of Polk at 2:35 p.m. and crossed highway 66 about two miles east of town. There were multiple stretches of down power poles which caused many people in the area to be without power for approximately five hours. Several pivots were overturned on its 7 1/2-mile path across the rural countryside. The tornado ended its trek at 2:43 p.m. about five miles northwest of Stromsburg.
Both were declared EF1 tornados of about 350-400 yards wide. The first mentioned tornado had peak winds of 111 miles per hour and the second had windspeeds of 102 Miles per hour. Thankfully there were no deaths and only a couple injured people.
The biggest cause of damage to the area was straight line winds. Many residents in Polk County and the state of Nebraska reported damage as small as limbs in the yard to as big as whole buildings blowing away. One of the wind speeds recorded was 93 miles per hour at the Lincoln Airport. Polk county has estimates in the high 80s to low 90s for wind speeds. Columbus had a wind speed recording of 89 miles per hour.
