County ‘dodged a really big bullet’

Thunderstorms, tornadoes roll across region Monday

Andrew D. Brosig
Posted 6/14/17

A series of severe thunderstorms moved out of Colorado, through eastern Wyoming and into Nebraska and South Dakota on Monday, bringing large hail, damaging winds and numerous tornadoes in what some are calling a one-of-a-kind weather event.

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County ‘dodged a really big bullet’

Thunderstorms, tornadoes roll across region Monday

Posted

GOSHEN COUNTY – A series of severe thunderstorms moved out of Colorado, through eastern Wyoming and into Nebraska and South Dakota on Monday, bringing large hail, damaging winds and numerous tornadoes in what some are calling a one-of-a-kind weather event.
Shelly Kirchhefer, emergency management director for Goshen County, said her latest count tallied 17 reports of tornadoes across eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. One of those storm systems brought high winds and a probable tornado to the Lay Ranch near Prairie Center, resulting in damage to buildings and equipment and the only injuries reported with the storm, she said.
Two people suffered minor injuries, she said.
In a social media post late Monday, Michaella Lay said that, additionally, horses and other livestock were injured in the storm. A massive grass fire devastated the Lay Ranch last summer and the family was finally getting back on its feet.
“Everything was starting to look up until this evening when we were hit by a severe thunderstorm,” her post read. “I pulled into a yard that was completely destroyed.”

Kate Cotsakis, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cheyenne, confirmed that particular storm cell started around the Chugwater area before moving north and hitting Wheatland with up to softball sized hail. It then continued on, striking with more hail near Fort Laramie, before continuing into northern Goshen County and, eventually, into the Nebraska Panhandle.
Overall, the county faired well, Kirchhefer said. Damage surveys were just getting underway Tuesday morning and definitive numbers, including the amount of damage, costs and the full extent of the storms, were still pending.
Goshen County “faired pretty good, compared to some of the other counties in the (Nebraska) Panhandle that got hit,” she said. “I think we dodged a pretty big bullet.
“The National Weather Service did a great job,” Kirchhefer said. “Getting the information out to the public as soon as they did, getting them prepared for what was going to hit, I think they did an excellent job.”
Storms also struck in the Laramie County area before moving north and east into Nebraska. Areas along Interstate 80 from Pine Bluff to Kimball, Neb., and north into Scotts Bluff County took the brunt of one of those storms, Kirchhefer said.
The storm systems developed early Monday as a result of a low-pressure area in the northern Rockies, bringing unseasonably cold air into the mix, meteorologist Cotsakis said. This was an unusual occurrence, because systems of this type normally don’t happen this late in the spring.
“This type of a storm we would have expected more likely in May,” she said. “It’s really unusual for this time of year. That’s what triggered these storms.”
The National Weather Service issued an extreme severe risk warning for severe weather in the region in association with the storms, among the highest-level of announcement, Cotsakis said. That, in itself, was a first-time occurrence for this state.
“Something like this has never been issued in Wyoming history,” she said. “This was the first time we ever saw this.
“We’ve never seen these types of conditions in this area before,” Cotsakis said. “Some people are saying it was similar to the Windsor tornado in 2008, but this was definitely a lot stronger than this event.”