National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

Monthly Weather Summary June 2010* * with links to significant events and preliminary climate information for several cities (including Kearney, Hastings and Grand island)

June 2010 was a busy month weather-wise, especially after a fairly quiet start to the severe weather season in April and May. Things got rolling right away during the first week, as a late night hail storm dropped baseball size hail near Cotesfield in Howard County, Nebraska. While baseball size hail isn't necessarily unusual, the fact the hail fell around 1:00 AM is quite unusual in this area. Just a few days later, high winds rolled into the region and did some damage around Lexington.

The main storyline this June was the extremely heavy rainfall which resulted in widespread flooding across both south central Nebraska and north central Kansas. The heaviest rain, generally in excess of 10 inches, fell north of Interstate 80 in south central Nebraska. Parts of Greeley County measured over 14 inches of rain for the month. Widespread and damaging flooding ensued, thanks in part to the failure of two dams, one near North Loup and the other at Ericson. The failure of the dam near North Loup led to extensive flooding in town as the Mira Creek surged out of its banks.  At about the same time the flooding was going on, a tornado set down in eastern Furnas County Nebraska. This tornado was rated an EF1 based upon the damage caused southeast of Beaver City.

More heavy rain, flooding and even tornadoes ensued about 7 to 10 days later on Father's Day weekend, this time mainly impacting north central Kansas and far southern Nebraska. Tornadoes hit near Randall, Kansas and Superior, Nebraska, and were rated EF1 and EF2 respectively. A brief tornado was also reported near Esbon, Kansas. Sandwiched in between was record flooding within the Solomon River Basin across areas of north central Kansas, roughly between Highways 24 and 36.  Though the end of the month was generally dry and warm, it wasn't without severe weather, as high winds battered Geneva, Nebraska a few hours prior to sunrise on Sunday, June 27th.

For more information, check out these links to significant weather events in June 2010 (reverse chronological order):

Summer is here!

   For more climate related information, check out the following websites:

This page was composed by the staff at the National Weather Service in Hastings, Nebraska.