Severe weather threat builds through the weekend; Sunday could be most dangerous day in Nebraska

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:05]Hey, good evening everyone.

[00:00:06]Meteorologist Jessica Blum joining you from the 1011 Now Alert Center. We've got a lot to talk about tonight in the fact that a severe weather threat is building over this weekend, namely as we go towards Sunday. Lot of details to talk about in the days before now and Sunday even. So, we're going to get to all of those details here in a second, but we're going to start out our stream here on a Wednesday evening, May 13th, giving a shout out to Syracuse Elementary. Carmemella Latuka was out there last week, and we want to thank Megan for inviting us out to talk to those elementary school kids. You can see how eager they were in kind of the stands for this picture uh and getting to see the weather shield and uh really learning more about weather and what we do. Uh again a reminder that that QR code in the upper right hand side of your screen will take you to a form that you can fill out. I think uh we just hit today 50 visits on the year. So we are well on track to set a new record compared to years past. In fact, I made it out to uh FTH this morning to see some homeschoolers. The LHR co-op in FTH. I was invited out by Kimberly. And you see here with me Kimberly's little one, Andrew. He's had three open heart surgeries that I've uh managed to get to see him in full action today and his love for weather and it was just such an honor to meet him. So, got to hand out some stickers and it's always a good time. I I like to think that this is a good memory for kids to have. So, um if you think that we'd be a good idea for you and your kiddos, be sure to invite us out. We don't just talk to the kids.

[00:01:40]We'll talk to uh retirees. We'll talk to a lot of businesses too about uh severe weather and what we look for and we can cater a lot of these presentations to the audience and the age that we're talking to. So, just kind of keep that in mind. But going forward here tonight, your next big change, we really have to talk about the severe weather threat.

[00:02:00]That's kind of the biggest headline going forward as we look at a pretty decent setup for the first time um this month really for hopefully some rain but also for some severe weather. There are some low-end chances Thursday, Friday, and even into Saturday. But I think the most dangerous day that we may be looking at is Sunday overall for a more robust severe weather setup. And I'm just so thankful for you joining me here on the stream tonight because this is the spot where I can take my time and show you all of these details. Do not envy Bill and Brad and what they've had to do in about 3 4 minutes time. You know, they're limited in time uh with what they can do on on air, not given the amount of time I'm sure that they'd love to dedicate to talking about the weather. But we can go into deeper details here as you join me here this evening, including the warm and windy day. It'll be on Thursday. In fact, our windiest day of the week so far.

[00:02:56]Anticipating gusts to be as high as 40 mph in Lincoln. Could be higher up to 45 m per hour in northeast Nebraska. And there are some red flag warnings in place for portions of Nebraska as well.

[00:03:06]We'll show you that. And also nearing record highs on Friday. So with some lowend chances for severe weather Thursday and Friday, really those two bullet points are what we're looking at over the next two days until we get into this weekend. And as we talk about the risk for severe weather, you know that moisture is a key ingredient that we look for in thunderstorm development. So I wanted to show you what the due points will do and what it may feel like to us as we go throughout the rest of this weekend and into this weekend.

[00:03:34]Thunderstorm development is not going to be highly favored when you're looking at due points in around where it's been today, 30 or so, and and even into the 40s Thursday and Friday. But you'll see the uptick on Saturday and I think feel it a little bit more Saturday into Sunday and those due points riding out in the 60s into early next week before a drop off in a front Monday into Tuesday and we'll see temperatures come down from the above average temperatures we've been experiencing for much of this week in the 80s if not pushing toward 90° especially on Friday. So let's get to it. I woke up to a lot of updates from the Storm Prediction Center in the outlooks for severe weather. Each of the next one, two, three, four, five days has a risk for severe weather somewhere in Nebraska. Does that mean we're going to see severe weather every day?

[00:04:22]Probably not. In fact, very likely that we won't, especially Thursday and Friday. But it is a good heads up. This is a good practice. Now, as we get into May, we should have been seeing probably more action than we have. It's just been a very dry year. In fact, uh, our driest start to May in a very long time, if not I think it's the driest start to May ever, especially through the first couple of weeks. Not anticipating we get much tomorrow at all, if anything at all, especially here in Lincoln, but throughout this year, too. We're in the top 10, 15 uh, driest years, too, in history here in Lincoln. So, keep that in mind. But I wanted to show you again our muggy meter because that gives you a good outlook on where the due point will be and the moisture we're looking for for thunderstorm development. When you get in the 50s and especially the 60s, you're looking at a pretty good moisture return finally make it into Nebraska and overcoming a lot of the dry air that we've been dealing with because you've almost heard me talk about it nightly.

[00:05:19]The vera that we've seen, I'm sure Brad and Bill and Brandon have been mentioning it too and even Carmelo sometimes. We can see the clouds and we can see that they're kind of wispy underneath. It looks like it's trying to rain, but nothing's making it to the ground other than maybe a spot sprinkle here and there that you'll see, but it's really not adding up to anything measurable, and we really need the rain.

[00:05:41]So, let's get dive into each of these days going forward, and I'll show you the risk for severe weather. I'm going to show you each of the next five days or so. Um, and then we'll go back to kind of talking about currents uh today.

[00:05:55]some more specific details of course with Thursday and Friday and then kind of ra uh wrap everything up with a longer range outlook. But going into tomorrow, there is overall marginal level one out of five risk across much of southern Nebraska.

[00:06:11]Lincoln's included in it. North Plat's on the edge, but you can see it bumps up to a slight level two out of five risk down in Kansas. The higher likelihood of thunderstorm development altogether is probably in Kansas. looking at much of Thursday, there's not a lot of models that actually develop much of anything, even showers, let alone thunderstorm development in southern Nebraska. But if a storm, an isolated storm, we're able to pop, maybe looking at some gusty winds and some hail, uh likely on the smaller side of things, but then you can see this risk kind of shifts a little bit and kind of centers over Kansas City, much of northeastern Kansas into Missouri and southern Iowa. Fall City being clipped by that slight level two out of five risk on Friday with again maybe some hail, some gusty winds. Our tornado threat is not going to pick up here in the state of Nebraska until likely Sunday. Again, that more robust weather setup that we're kind of looking at going forward that'll happen by the end of this weekend. So, if you have plans on Sunday, we haven't yet, but as of Wednesday, talk back with the Severe Weather Center team. you know, my fellow meteorologists, is that we may be leaning toward a weather alert day on Sunday. Um, so stay tuned for that. If you see that even now, if you've got plans on Sunday, maybe make plans to tentatively have to move those around, if not move them to a different day because the afternoon and evening time frame could be very fairly active. Um, but as we start to talk about this weekend, severe weather potential.

[00:07:38]Saturday, more of a conditional risk.

[00:07:40]Another day that we're looking at maybe some hail, some damaging wind. Um, and we only have a 30% chance at showers and thunderstorms for our forecast here in Lincoln. Another warm day, middle and upper 80s over this weekend. But we've upped that precipitation chance on Sunday because we're looking at a better chance for storms, maybe some more better coverage as we finally have a good plume of moisture making it this far north to impact us in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. So, we're looking at strong, if not severe storms certainly being possible on Sunday, but all severe weather modes being possible by then. The large hail, the damaging wind, there will be a tornado threat with these storms too that could materialize on Sunday given the setup that we're looking at. Also on Sunday with this kind of system developing, it's going to be a strong system which is also going to drive some stronger winds which also is driving in more of the moisture and why we should see better moisture transport into our area by Sunday knowing we've got south tossoutheast winds gusting 40 45 maybe a little higher than that even much as Sunday afternoon and even night into Monday too and that's kind of what keeps a lot of the moisture in place for a Monday setup as well. So, as you just looked at the last two uh severe weather outlooks, you know, we had the marginal, the slight risk details, but as we go farther out and we talk about Saturday and Sunday, this is day four, day five outlooks, we don't have the details yet.

[00:09:09]It's not until we get to day three. And then as the days get closer from day three, that we see this overall severe weather outlook change into the marginal, the slight, the enhanced, the stuff that you're used to. But if there's a strong enough signal on day four, day five, we'll get this kind of overall outlook from the Storm Prediction Center saying, "Hey, we are looking at this farther out. There's a good chance that there could be severe weather in this area." And it gives us an overall chance at severe weather for any given location within about 25 miles of a point. So, southeast Nebraska on Saturday is included in what could be eventually a slight risk for scattered severe storms being possible from Kansas up through Iowa. Lincoln's included in that. But this is Sunday's severe weather outlook. And I will say this is the most concerning day largely because we are looking at again all severe weather modes being on the table um especially for eastern Nebraska and into western Iowa. So, you'll want to be weather aware for sure by the end of this weekend. have multiple ways to get alerts and warnings on your phone. Uh Sunday could certainly be a day that we see a watch be issued, if not several warnings across uh much of our 10-11 coverage area. And then Monday, still an outlook in the area. We've got a cold front that'll come crashing through. And we've seen this before. This is kind of a common setup we can see in eastern Nebraska that if that cold front's advancing a little farther with time, maybe this uh outlook gets shift gets shifted east depending on the positioning of this front by the time we get to Monday because this is day six pretty far out. Gives us a rough idea for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this uh risk changes a lot between now and Monday. But just another heads up going into even early next week, we're going to be keeping an eye on severe weather potential. So, I know I mentioned Saturday and Sunday for overall precipitation chances. Here's the overall chance for precipitation in Lincoln over the next 7 days. You can see we've kept it on the lower end for Thursday and Friday. Not high confidence in much happening at all. Uh rain, severe weather, all of that really. But then we'd bump it up to a 30% chance on Saturday and then even a 40% chance Sunday and into Monday. I think those chances for Saturday are largely pushing towards Saturday night overnight and into Sunday before those chances will drop off again by Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Hopefully going to pick up on some meaningful moisture. If you ever see us pull up this map, overall pretty optimistic map. And this is another setup that we've seen that's pretty common in which we're on the edge of a good plume of moisture to our east. And maybe we get something here in eastern Nebraska. I know western Nebraska is usually uh left hoping for a lot more in setups like this, but this is saying that maybe we see over 3/4 an inch of rainfall in much of eastern Nebraska.

[00:12:06]And again, I would take that with a grain of salt because we'd need multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms, I think, to get that. Or if not, a really good thunderstorm to move through one area and maybe it's producing a good inch or so. But if that's happening, maybe a flash flood flash flood risk with that as well. So, just kind of keep this in mind. All things that we have in our head that you don't have to worry about because we are getting you the latest details on our app daily updates uh several times a day. You can get pushes from our weather app and of course join our streams each evening.

[00:12:38]I'll be tracking this with a close eye each night going forward throughout the end of this week. And if I need to, we are already starting to talk about maybe moving uh some of us meteorologists to help with what could be severe weather coverage over this weekend and helping meteorologist Carmelo Latuka because it's always better to have at least a couple meteorologists on hand when you've got uh the threat of severe weather as we do over this weekend because during the week we're we're staffed up pretty well, but you can imagine the weekend uh can be pretty bare bones and we don't want Carmelo to have deal with that a lot on his own. Uh kind of keeping an eye on things as we get closer to that event. But here today, we do have a uh red flag warning in place for Metro Central and western Nebraska.

[00:13:24]It'll go through late tonight. Some of these areas, that red flag warning goes until about 1 in the morning. So, for a while yet, because those winds have been pretty strong out that way. And then on Thursday, we are looking at uh a red flag warning for northeastern Nebraska, too, I believe. Unless they were just taken out of it.

[00:13:52]Huh.

[00:13:54]I believe northeast Nebraska was included in this uh red flag warning.

[00:13:58]I'm not sure why it's not showing up, but it was, you know, a few counties up this way north of Columbus through northeast Nebraska. And even though you're not seeing it here, want to make you make sure you're mindful of uh the elevated fire danger that we really have for much of the state just due to the lack of rain we've had and the strong gusty winds still with some dry air into Thursday.

[00:14:19]So talking about the wind forecast as those winds are expected to come up for much of central and eastern Nebraska uh tonight and especially throughout tomorrow. You're looking at wind gusts topping out 35 40 miles per hour here in Lincoln uh beyond about 9 10 o'clock in the morning especially in the early afternoon hours and then gradual to come down toward later tomorrow evening.

[00:14:40]Playing that out through time and across space really across our state. Again, gusty first out in western Nebraska tonight, but that'll spread eastward with time into central and eastern Nebraska. This is 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

[00:14:52]more frequent wind gusts could be as high as 30, 35, maybe even pushing 40 mph in northeast Nebraska.

[00:15:00]And then again, maybe some gusts occasionally trying to get toward 40 miles an hour in northeast Nebraska and even portions of far eastern Nebraska early in the afternoon before these winds are coming down tomorrow evening as the sun comes down. So, your maximum wind gusts are pretty strong tomorrow.

[00:15:17]Certainly a windy day on Thursday with southerntherly winds. That arrow that you're looking there next to the max wind gust that we have forecasted is your wind direction each day. So the east northeast on Friday. Pretty much lighter winds by then even though we're getting warmer. And a 20 m per hour wind gust is all on Saturday, but then looking windy again Sunday and into Monday with maybe even some gusts as high as 35 and 45 miles hour. And then again out of the south on Sunday here for Wednesday, the middle of the week. I had to keep telling myself that this was not Thursday. It is Wednesday. We have a couple more days left of the work week to get to 82 degrees today. Our low temperature managed to drop down to 43 degrees overnight and into this morning.

[00:16:04]Hopefully going to see some rain soon.

[00:16:06]Your low temperatures across the state did manage to drop into the middle 30s in Wayne. 35 degrees up that way for a low. 36 in or as well as Shadron. Just 52 degrees for a low. a little more comfortable down in Nebraska City, but certainly cool and cooler than average for much of us in southeastern South Central Nebraska and even northern Nebraska. Your high temperatures peaked in the lower 90s out in the panhandle, but again, we got to 82 degrees here in Lincoln, 83 in Hein and Grand Island. A lot of 83s in central Nebraska with a lot of sunshine. It was a top 10 11 day.

[00:16:40]Hopefully you got out and enjoyed it because it's nice not to see the wind even with some of these warmer temperatures where don't have the humidity. So, it's been an overall comfortable warmer May day for sure and a beautiful look at the sunshine and that evening glow that we have across our sky view cameras, including right here at home in the capital city. 77° both at the 10-11 studio and at the LNK airport. The southeast breeze around 3 miles per hour is all. Humidity down around 20%. Your temperatures across Lincoln are in the low to mid70s. Still around 78 degrees on the west side of town. Uh and a couple tempest stations on the southern portion of town as well.

[00:17:22]But a lot of us are dipping into the middle 70s, if not maybe a little cooler than that as you get toward the Missouri River. 74 in Omaha, Nebraska City, and Syracuse. 78 right now in Grand Island.

[00:17:33]79 in Superior, still 88° in Shadran just past 8:15. Your Dupoint temperatures are low. Again, these are going to need to come up and rise by a lot to get thunderstorm development by the end of this weekend. I'll actually zoom out to show you the plume of moisture right now that we're going to need to come a lot farther north is currently situated over much of Texas, southern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

[00:18:00]when you start to see those darker green shades. We're still in a lot of the brown here in Nebraska and that's why a lot of those clouds though they are producing some raindrops, it is evaporating long before we see it make it to the ground. So, we need this to change significantly between now and this weekend for any significant threat and more more coverage to any thunderstorms by the late portions of this weekend. Currently looking at winds, usually this is the time of the night that we see the winds come down.

[00:18:29]They are still cranking at a good speed in western Nebraska. Sustained at around 20 to 25 mph. Out of the south, still occasionally gusting around 30 to 35 miles per hour, especially higher end of that range towards Sydney and Shadron.

[00:18:45]We don't have any higher wind gusts here in eastern Nebraska. So, kind of the different tail on either a different tail to that story really on either side of the state. And mostly sunny skies.

[00:18:57]We've seen a lot of sunshine across the state of Nebraska here today. Some more clouds are rolling in to western Nebraska with a few showers that you can see are not hanging on for very long once they do make it into the state.

[00:19:07]Just kind of producing a little more cloud cover. So, not expecting anything really out that way as we go forward in time with Skycast at times. Partly cloudy skies I think overnight tonight and into tomorrow morning. Kind of a mix of sun and clouds at times throughout Thursday. But you'll see how hard it is for Skycast to even be optimistic at a shower, a thunderstorm popping up anytime soon. Those due points will be rather low. Even though we've got a southerntherly wind that'll be cranking up throughout the day, it's just still going to be rather dry and so not looking at too much. But if a storm does pop, we'll talk about some of those details and what window we're more specifically looking at for a stronger storm or two in southern Nebraska heading throughout tomorrow and even into Friday.

[00:19:50]as I advance here through our stream heading into Friday. Pretty quiet, a lot of sunshine, abundant sunshine really across the state. And then we'll get into the later evening hours. You can see this version of Skycast is showing a little activity right along the Kansas border into northern Kansas. This will kind of be, I think, the boundary that we'll have to watch as it's lifting a little bit further north because you'll see it's trying to develop some showers, maybe some thunderstorms across southeastern Nebraska right around I 80, if not just to the north. This is 10 11:00. So, this is after the sun goes down and maybe not lasting all that long before this is pushing even further north and then there could be storm development past midnight in northwestern Iowa.

[00:20:35]So to break down Thursday and Friday because those are the next two days that we've got to look for and know those details before we can even get to this weekend. This is the window that if a storm were able to pop, uh we're looking at a low chance for any severe weather across southern Nebraska.

[00:20:52]Maybe a five to 15% chance an isolated storm for any given location from North Plat down through Mcook east Omaha and Lincoln including this marginal risk.

[00:21:03]But from about 7:00 to midnight, we're going to watch. But storms are going to be more likely to develop in portions of Kansas toward that slight level two out of five risk. And the only thing really on the table for any of those stronger storms in southern Nebraska would be maybe some hail, maybe some gusty winds, but not a high likelihood event to happen whatsoever tomorrow. On Friday, as we're getting warmer, you can see the risk for severe weather kind of slides to the east. So, it's southeastern Nebraska now highlighted in the level one out of five risk, including Lincoln and Omaha. Again, we're watching kind of more of a 4 to 9:00 time frame on Friday. Still hail, still some gusty winds. And you can see Skycast was favoring that day out of the next two for maybe any storms trying to develop and struggle, but higher likelihood of storm development further south and east toward northeastern Kansas, Kansas City, northwestern Missouri, areas like that. So if you got Friday plans traveling out that way, keep in mind maybe having to stay weather aare by Friday night and Friday evening. As for your Schaffer Lincoln forecast tonight at 9:00, still around 71°, mainly clear. It should be a great fantastic night. Again, those winds staying light and we will eventually dip into the 50s. So not as cool as this past morning when we were in the lower 40s, but your average low is right around 50° at this time of the year.

[00:22:28]will be above that and it'll springboard us into a warmer afternoon maybe by a couple degrees compared to today with a high closer to 84° and it will be windy.

[00:22:38]I can count count on those gusts here in Lincoln maybe as high as 40 miles per hour at times past about 9 10:00 in the morning especially through the early afternoon hours. Your low temperatures across the state largely the 50s to around 60 degrees. Pretty uniform no matter where you're looking or where you're at here as a Nebraskan. But your day planners, we're planning out our Thursday or Friday Eve as I like to call it here in Lincoln. Closer to almost the middle 80s. And that's about 10 degrees above average for May 14th.

[00:23:11]You'll see we start to include those 20% chances for again a stray shower or thunderstorm to pop up after about 3:00 and through I think about midnight tomorrow. That's kind of just to adjust in case really. I don't even know that the chance is that good for Lincoln to see that through that time frame, but we are in the marginal risk. So, we took that into account for providing a little bit of a precipitation chance on Thursday.

[00:23:39]though a lot of us are not confident in seeing much. You'll see the high temperatures on Thursday really favor southwest Nebraska as a little heat spot kind of hot spot with some more 90 degree readings for high temperatures expected that way. We will see more of that I think as we go into Friday. In fact, we'll be in record territory in Lincoln within at least a degree. Our forecast high right now is at 92 degrees. The record for the day set back in 2001 is 93. So, we're not far off. Certainly way above average.

[00:24:11]Our average high at that point in the year is 75°.

[00:24:15]And you'll see more widespread 90s are certainly in the forecast for Friday across the state. 92 in Lincoln, Beatatric, Omaha, maybe as high as 93 in Hein, Makook, Tea, but you're looking at a lot of lower 90s around I 80 and even some areas just north and even maybe as far north as Nork.

[00:24:34]So, seeing some more clouds mix into the forecast as we go throughout the end of this weekend, especially this weekend.

[00:24:44]As we talk about your extended forecast, cooler temperatures by next Tuesday, maybe a day in the 60s, 50s and 60s across the state even if you've been hanging your hat on a cooler day. It's a little give and take this time of the year. I'd love a cooler day, but the warm day like today, a top 101 day without the wind, can't complain there either. Then a gradual warmup Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and into the following weekend. So, this 10-day forecast is kind of wild. You see the oranges, the reds, and then we even have some green showing up as those 50s and 60s for highs next Monday and Tuesday following this uh quite impressive May system that'll drive some uh really a multi-day severe weather risk through much of the plains uh starting tomorrow and really extending through early next week. So, we'll see the response in that system on the backside bringing us some cooler air uh Monday and into Tuesday, especially for those out toward North Plat. Maybe as cool as the 50s for a high, maybe O'Neal, a couple days in the 50s before gradually warming. Your precipitation chances are starting to look a lot better for this weekend. like likely looking at scatter if not numerous uh storms and maybe some severe storms certainly to come out of that especially by Sunday. Keeping a close eye on that if you're just joining me. Um and then some precipitation chances increasing again toward next Thursday.

[00:26:14]But you can see a lot of blanket 20% in there as well for a little something.

[00:26:18]Though we have lived here, we've all lived this uh 2026 year together. Not optimistic for a whole lot of those 20%s to turn into much. But our overall 8 to 14-day precipitation outlook is greening up a little bit more, which would mean that there's even a better chance in this time frame to see some above average precipitation.

[00:26:40]Right now with that little bit darker gr uh green shade, we're looking at maybe a 40 to 50% chance at above average precipitation, which I think we Bill and I factored it earlier this month. It's about 210 I think per day that we should be getting. And we have seen none of that so far through the first 13 days of the month. So you can imagine how far we are below average already for May and really on the year. But also looking fairly warm during that time frame. Uh leaning above average, which our average temperatures toward the third week of May are likely in the upper 70s. So a lot of days in the 80s, maybe pushing toward 90° again, but we have yet to see 90 in May so far here in Lincoln. We got close this week, but we should do it on Friday. And if not, come close to a record for the date. That record being 93°. Now, outside of the windy day tomorrow with this system and with the robust chance for some thunderstorms and some severe weather on Sunday, it will also be windy by then, too, before we see those temperatures coming down Monday and into Tuesday. Appreciate everyone joining me here tonight on again Wednesday, May 13th. This is going to be something very active to keep your eye peeled to. Pay attention to these forecasts because we know living in Nebraska, these can change as we get closer to each of these events. And with one right after the other, one event is certainly going to determine how the next day will kind of play out because some of these days, especially Saturday, we may have, you know, a remnant boundary, a stationary boundary and where that sets up, that'll kind of determine where some of that severe weather will be. So, we will be sure to step you through this week and this weekend with uh evening streams. Uh we've been keeping up more so with uh some of those morning streams at 10:30 as well, but be sure to have our app handy for the latest on this forecast as we continue to post updates. Of course, these uh outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center will change daily, if not they can change sometimes multiple times a day. And then the day of as we get towards Saturday and Sunday, may have to keep an eye out for a severe weather watch to be issued, too. So, we will be sure to stay on top of that for you. Of course, chief meteorologist Brad Anderson will have the latest forecast for you tonight at 10. But until then, hope everyone has a great Wednesday evening.

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