Although severe storms affected only small portions of the southeast quadrant of the local area (namely Nuckolls County), this Sunday afternoon featured the first documented tornado of 2016 within South Central Nebraska, along with a smattering of hail reports up to golf ball size. The EF1-rated tornado was the story of the day locally, as it traced nearly a three mile, curved path from approximately eight miles to five miles northwest of Superior shortly after 6 p.m. CDT. Along the way, it damaged trees, fence line and power poles. It was also highly visible (some folks saw it from nearly 20 miles away) and was even captured live by a TV station webcam in Superior. Nearly an hour later, another tornado narrowly missed southern Thayer County, but remained slightly south of the state line in Republic County Kansas. As for hail, ground-truth reports were fairly limited, but a separate storm (not the same one that produced the tornado) dropped ping pong ball to golf ball stones from Superior to at least three miles east of Superior. Earlier on, the initial severe storm development of the afternoon yielded ping pong ball size hail south of Red Cloud.
Within the local South Central Nebraska area, this event consisted of a fairly localized cluster of multicell and a few supercell storms, the majority of which affected Nuckolls, Webster Thayer and Fillmore counties between 5:00-7:30 p.m. CDT before exiting into southeast Nebraska. As mentioned, Nuckolls County bore the brunt of severe weather, with one severe storm lifting north out of Jewell County Kansas, and another (the tornado-producer) intensifying as it drifted east from Webster County. North of this primary zone of strong to severe convection, a few strong storms also flared up within the northeast quadrant of South Central Nebraska, including one that dropped small hail in eastern Nance County around 7:30 p.m. CDT. In the mid-upper levels, the primary instigator for severe weather was a strong, closed low tracking eastward along the Nebraska-South Dakota border and a negatively-tilted shortwave trough to its east-southeast kicking out across the Central Plains. At mid-afternoon, the primary surface low of around 996 millibars was centered in central South Dakota, while a secondary, slightly weaker low developed in west central Kansas. These two lows were connected by a rather classic, north-south oriented dryline/cold front combination. The South Central Nebraska severe storms erupted along the leading dryline, in an environment characterized by surface temperatures in the mid-70s F, dewpoints in the mid-upper 50s and south-southeast winds of 15-20 MPH with higher gusts. The mesoscale environment was certainly supportive of supercell storms, featuring up to 2000 J/kg mixed-layer CAPE and deep-layer wind shear of 40-50 knots. Although tornado parameters were not overly-high, a steady increase in low-level (0-1 kilometer) wind shear to around 20 knots was noted by late afternoon.

Tornado in NUCKOLLS, NEBRASKA
From 24-APR-16 17:03:00 to 24-APR-16 17:10:00 (CST-6)
Location: BOSTWICK
Tornado F-scale: EF1
Property damage: 4.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: NWS Storm Survey

This tornado touched down approximately 8 miles northwest of Superior and took a curved path to the southwest before lifting approximately 5 miles northwest of Superior. This tornado remained in rural areas, damaging trees, fence line and 4 power poles along its path. The maximum wind speed was estimated to be 100 MPH.

Hail in NUCKOLLS, NEBRASKA
From 24-APR-16 16:45:00 to 24-APR-16 16:55:00 (CST-6)
Location: SUPERIOR
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: COOP Observer

Several reports of ping pong ball to golf ball size hail from Superior to 3 miles east of town, including social media photos.

Hail in WEBSTER, NEBRASKA
From 24-APR-16 15:48:00 to 24-APR-16 15:48:00 (CST-6)
Location: RED CLOUD
Magnitude: 1.25 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Social Media

Hail in NUCKOLLS, NEBRASKA
From 24-APR-16 17:50:00 to 24-APR-16 17:50:00 (CST-6)
Location: RUSKIN
Magnitude: 0.88 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter