Although severe weather reports were limited on this Tuesday afternoon and evening, the first severe thunderstorm event of 2012 featured the first-ever confirmed February tornado within the 24-county South Central Nebraska area. This brief EF0 tornado touched down four miles west of Greeley at 7 PM and overturned an irrigation pivot. A few hours prior to this, an EF0 tornado near Stapleton in west central Nebraska became the first-ever documented February tornado within the state of Nebraska. In addition to the tornado west of Greeley, a few other notable reports of wind damage in northern portions of South Central Nebraska included a feed grinder overturned near North Loup and an outbuilding destroyed southwest of Belgrade.
Breaking down the event, an initial band of non-severe elevated thunderstorms lifted from north to south across much of South Central Nebraska between 10 AM and 1 PM. In the wake of this early activity, modest clearing and resultant destabilization worked into western portions of the area during the early afternoon, in association with an advancing mid level dry slot. As a result, isolated to scattered thunderstorms developed into portions of mainly Dawson, Gosper, Phelps, Furnas and Harlan Counties between 130 PM-330 PM. One of these storms became an organized low-topped supercell in Phelps and Buffalo Counties between 330 PM-430 PM, but resulted in only pea size hail reports in the Holdrege and Kearney areas. Later in the afternoon and early evening, mainly between 530 PM-830 PM, the coverage of strong to severe thunderstorms increased a bit for areas north of Interstate 80, and also east of Highway 281. The storm mode during this time was primarily comprised of fast-moving line segments with a few pockets of embedded rotation, such as that which produced the tornado near Greeley. By 830 PM, all thunderstorms had exited into eastern Nebraska.
On the synoptic scale, this was a classic early-season severe weather setup for the area, featuring a strong, negatively tilted mid and upper level trough ejecting out of the Central Rockies into the Central Plains. At the surface, a well-defined surface low pressure system deepened to around 994 millibars as it tracked from east-central Colorado at mid-day, to central Nebraska by late afternoon. This allowed a well-defined surface triple point to develop into central Nebraska as a warm lifted north and a trailing cold front surged in from the west. Late afternoon mesoscale parameters revealed a highly-sheared but only modestly unstable environment with surface dewpoints only in the upper 40s to low 50s. Surface-based CAPE averaged under 1000 J/kg, but deep-layer vertical wind shear averaged least 50-60 knots, and low-level 0-1 kilometer shear featured impressive values of 35-50 knots. At the time of the tornado in Greeley County, effective storm relative helicity values were at least 600 m2/s2.
In the wake of the departing storms and surface low pressure system, very strong westerly winds overspread South Central Nebraska, with gusts to around 50 MPH lasting well into the early morning hours of the 29th. The wintry side of this system narrowly missed northern portions of the area, as parts of north central Nebraska received several inches of snow.

Thunderstorm Wind in VALLEY, NEBRASKA
From 28-FEB-12 18:49:00 to 28-FEB-12 18:49:00 (CST-6)
Location: NORTH LOUP
Magnitude: 61.00 EG
Property damage: 1.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Emergency Manager

Wind gusts estimated at 70 mph resulted in moved irrigation pipe and a feed grinder being overturned.

Tornado in GREELEY, NEBRASKA
From 28-FEB-12 19:00:00 to 28-FEB-12 19:01:00 (CST-6)
Location: GREELEY
Tornado F-scale: EF0
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Emergency Manager

A weak tornado, with peak winds estimated at 70 mph, briefly touched down west of Greeley.  Damage was confined to an overturned pivot.

Thunderstorm Wind in NANCE, NEBRASKA
From 28-FEB-12 19:30:00 to 28-FEB-12 19:30:00 (CST-6)
Location: BELGRADE
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Emergency Manager

Wind gusts estimated at 60 mph destroyed an outbuilding.