LINCOLN–(KFOR June 11)–Severe weather early Thursday morning dropped large hail, heavy rain, produced damaging winds and even spawned a tornado in southeast Nebraska.
It was around 3:15am when the first severe thunderstorm warnings were posted for portions of Seward, Saline, Butler and Lancaster counties, mostly west and north of Lincoln. Half-dollar sized hail fell four miles south of Seward, while about 2-and-a-half inch diameter hail was reported near Branched Oak Lake in northwestern Lancaster County not far from Malcolm, according to Emergency Management director Jim Davidsaver. In northeast Lincoln, pea-sized hail fell with heavy rain during the first wave of severe storms.
A second cluster of severe weather moved in and prompted severe thunderstorm warnings for all of Lancaster County, including Lincoln, along with parts of Saline, Seward, Butler, Saunders and Cass Counties until 4:45am. At the Lincoln Airport around 4:37am, a wind gust measured at 70 mph was reported. Heavy rain in a short amount of time prompted flash flood warnings for parts of the Lincoln metro toward Waverly in northern sections of Lancaster County. Those warnings have since been lifted.
Lincoln Fire and Rescue got a call shortly before 5am about a tree limb that went into a house turned apartments off of Touzalin and Kearney avenues in Havelock. LFR public information officer MJ Lierman told KFOR News it took crews about 20 minutes to cut the limb and extricate one person trapped out of there, before being taken to a Lincoln hospital with minor injuries. Three people living there had to be relocated with the help from the Red Cross…