For the second consecutive night, widespread thunderstorm activity blossomed across most all of the 24-county South Central Nebraska area on this Saturday, although just like the previous night all severe-criteria hail and wind reports emanated from counties along and west of the Highway 281 corridor. Early in the evening, an isolated severe storm dropped torrential rainfall and hail up to golf ball size over central Franklin County. Thereafter, the majority of severe weather later in the evening was associated with a pair of southeastward-surging storm clusters. The western-most one peaked in intensity over Dawson and western Buffalo counties, highlighted by reports of quarter to golf ball size hail in the Elm Creek area and golf ball to baseball size hail in the Lexington area. A bit farther east and a bit later, a separate severe storm cluster was more of a damaging wind producer as it raced through southern Hall and Adams counties and portions of neighboring counties. In these areas, estimated 60 MPH winds were reported in the Ayr and Bladen areas, and more significant peak gusts of slightly over 70 MPH were measured near Wood River and at Hastings airport, resulting in reports of a few large tree limbs down in the city. Fortunately for the majority of South Central Nebraska, most storms on this night produced only sub-severe wind gusts and non-flooding rainfall mainly under 1.50 inches. Localized pockets of the area measured higher rainfall amounts, but none more so than a small zone of very heavy rain up to around 6 that fell in east-central Franklin County, most of which from the aforementioned, slow-moving early evening storm.
Breaking down the timing of thunderstorm evolution in more detail, it's worth noting that well-before the onset of the evening main event several strong thunderstorms rumbled across the far northern/northeastern fringes of the local area for much of the day. Although radar suggested a few of these daytime storms may have produced larger hail (especially in northern Valley/Greeley counties), limited ground-truth reports yielded no larger than dime size stones. The primary evening event got underway between 630-730 pm CDT as a slow-moving, isolated severe storm blew up over Franklin County before eventually departing southeastward into northern Kansas. As the Franklin County storm was in progress, a southeastward-surging supercell cluster entered the local area from Custer County between 730-830 pm CDT, primarily impacting Dawson County and vicinity. Over the next few hours, this initial severe storm cluster weakened while a plethora of additional multicell and linear thunderstorm complexes blossomed over the majority of South Central Nebraska. While much of this activity was sub-severe, a second southeast-surging storm complex produced the damaging winds in the Hall/Adams counties area between 10-11 pm CDT. After 11 pm CDT, all storms in South Central Nebraska exhibited a steady weakening trend although widespread showers and embedded thunderstorms lingered well past midnight in many areas.
This was a fairly typical late-summer severe weather event featuring fairly high instability values but only modest deep layer wind shear and weak large scale forcing. In the mid to upper levels, generally quasi-zonal flow was in place over the Central Plains, containing one or more fairly subtle shortwave troughs. At the surface, storms during the main evening event initiated in the vicinity of a northwest-southeast oriented quasi stationary front draped from western Nebraska into north central Kansas, with this front partially composed of a remnant outflow boundary from the previous night's convection. With surface dewpoints well into the mid-60s to low-70s F across the local area, most-unstable CAPE climbed as high as 2000-3000 J/kg. Although a few storms briefly exhibited supercell structures, 0-6 kilometer deep layer wind shear only averaging around 30 knots promoted a predominant multicell/quasi-linear mode.

Hail in FRANKLIN, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 17:46:00 to 09-AUG-14 17:46:00 (CST-6)
Location: FRANKLIN
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Public

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 18:45:00 to 09-AUG-14 19:03:00 (CST-6)
Location: COZAD
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

Heavy Rain in FRANKLIN, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 07:00:00 to 10-AUG-14 07:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: FRANKLIN
Property damage: 15.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Public

An unofficial 24-hour rainfall amount was reported as 6.00 inches.

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 19:02:00 to 09-AUG-14 19:14:00 (CST-6)
Location: LEXINGTON
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 500.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Hail ranging in size from quarters to golf balls was reported.

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 19:16:00 to 09-AUG-14 19:16:00 (CST-6)
Location: LEXINGTON
Magnitude: 2.75 
Property damage: 250.00K
Crop damage: 3.00M
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail ranging in size from golf balls to baseballs was reported and was accompanied by wind gusts estimated to be near 55 MPH.

Hail in BUFFALO, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 19:50:00 to 09-AUG-14 19:58:00 (CST-6)
Location: ELM CREEK
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 500.00K
Reported by: County Official

Hail ranging in size from quarters to golf balls was reported.

Thunderstorm Wind in ADAMS, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:31:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:31:00 (CST-6)
Location: (HSI)HASTINGS ARPT
Magnitude: 62.00 MG
Property damage: 75.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: ASOS

Tree limbs, including a few large ones, were downed in town.

Thunderstorm Wind in ADAMS, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:45:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:45:00 (CST-6)
Location: AYR
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 75.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: NWS Employee

Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH.

Thunderstorm Wind in WEBSTER, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:48:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:48:00 (CST-6)
Location: BLADEN
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH.

Hail in PHELPS, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 20:20:00 to 09-AUG-14 20:20:00 (CST-6)
Location: FUNK
Magnitude: 0.75 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Thunderstorm Wind in HALL, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:14:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:14:00 (CST-6)
Location: WOOD RIVER
Magnitude: 63.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

Thunderstorm Wind in ADAMS, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:32:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:32:00 (CST-6)
Location: HASTINGS
Magnitude: 56.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Storm Chaser

Thunderstorm Wind in HALL, NEBRASKA
From 09-AUG-14 21:15:00 to 09-AUG-14 21:15:00 (CST-6)
Location: WOOD RIVER
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH.