A narrow, broken line of strong to isolated severe thunderstorms flared up along a cold front over southern portions of South Central Nebraska on this Friday afternoon. Although these storms yielded very few severe weather reports, one of them consisted of a brief landspout tornado in central Adams County. This EF0-rated tornado, which touched down roughly 2.5 miles southwest of Juniata around 4:30 p.m. CDT, tracked only a very short distance but partially ripped the roof from a metal outbuilding along the way. About an hour later, a trained spotter northwest of Red Cloud reported a combination of nickel size hail and wind gusts to 75 MPH (as measured by a personal weather station).
This fairly localized and short-duration severe weather event got underway during peak afternoon heating along a classic, slowly-southeastward-tracking front. Initial development took place between 4:00-4:30 p.m. CDT, consisting of a broken line of convection extending roughly along a line from Minden-Hastings-Giltner. As is often the case, the landspout tornado near Juniata materialized early in storm maturity, just as the initial updrafts were strengthening in the presence of enhanced low-level vorticity along the surface frontal zone. As this broken line headed southeast around 20 MPH, most of it remained sub-severe and even weakened. However, the southwestern flank intensified through western Webster County, producing the aforementioned severe wind gusts before exiting southward into Kansas between 6:00-6:30 p.m. CDT. A short time later, a secondary narrow line of storms popped up over the York County area but remained sub-severe. By 8 p.m. CDT, all of South Central Nebraska found itself storm-free for the remainder of the night. In the mid-upper levels, the main driving force for this event was a broad shortwave trough sinking southeast across the Dakotas into eastern Nebraska over the course of the afternoon and evening. This wave was embedded within strengthening northwesterly flow aloft, with the Central Plains residing on the downstream side of a pronounced western CONUS ridge. At the surface, the aforementioned cold front roughly bisected South Central Nebraska from southwest-to-northeast around the time of storm development, trailing well-southward from a weak low pressure center in eastern North Dakota. Near and ahead of this boundary, modestly-unstable conditions were noted over the local area as temperatures warmed into the mid-80s F and dewpoints averaged in the mid-50s to around 60 F, promoting mixed-layer CAPE up to around 1500 J/kg in the presence of deep-layer wind shear up to 35 knots.

Tornado in ADAMS, NEBRASKA
From 01-JUN-16 15:28:00 to 01-JUN-16 15:29:00 (CST-6)
Location: JUNIATA
Tornado F-scale: EF0
Property damage: 2.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: NWS Storm Survey

This landspout tornado briefly touched down roughly 2.5 miles southwest of Juniata. Damage was confined to a roof being partially torn off of a metal outbuilding. Maximum wind speed was estimated to be between 75 and 80 MPH.

Hail in WEBSTER, NEBRASKA
From 03-JUN-16 16:32:00 to 03-JUN-16 16:32:00 (CST-6)
Location: RED CLOUD
Magnitude: 0.88 
Property damage: 35.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail was accompanied by 75 MPH wind gusts.

Thunderstorm Wind in WEBSTER, NEBRASKA
From 03-JUN-16 16:32:00 to 03-JUN-16 16:32:00 (CST-6)
Location: RED CLOUD
Magnitude: 65.00 MG
Property damage: 35.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

Wind (measured by a personal weather station) was accompanied by nickel size hail.