Two separate rounds of strong to isolated severe thunderstorms raked across eastern portions of South Central Nebraska on this Tuesday, the first mainly during the pre-dawn hours and the second during the mid-late afternoon. These storms resulted in a handful of large hail and heavy rain reports, highlighted by stones up to 2��� diameter in Bruning during the afternoon and an unofficial calendar-day rainfall total of 4.70��� in Milligan.
Starting with the initial early morning round, scattered to numerous elevated storms blossomed within counties east of the Highway 281 corridor between 1-3 a.m. CDT, forming in rather classic nocturnal fashion along the axis of a stout 50 knot southerly low level jet evident at 850 millibars. Convection continuously redeveloped and streamed along a north-south oriented corridor for several more hours, even past sunrise, before the final morning storms finally vacated South Central Nebraska between 9:30-10:30 a.m. CDT.  While most morning storms produced only small hail and locally heavy rain up to around 2���, the presence of modest most-unstable CAPE of at least 500 J/kg resulted in a few strong to marginally severe cells, including one that dumped hail up to ping pong ball size on Aurora around 3:30 a.m. CDT.
The vast majority of South Central Nebraska had a storm-free lull between late morning and mid-afternoon before the next round of surface-based convection initiated between 3-4 p.m. CDT over Nuckolls, Clay and Hamilton counties along a slow-moving cold front. During the ensuing three hours from 4-7 p.m. CDT, a north-south axis of mainly multicell and quasi-linear storms edged slowly east, primarily affecting the Highway 81 counties before exiting into eastern Nebraska around sunset. The most intense storm of the afternoon tracked through northern Thayer and southern Fillmore counties between 4:30-6:00 p.m. CDT, yielding several reports of quarter to golf ball size hail in the Carleton and Bruning areas, including a few stones up to 2��� in Bruning. Rainfall-wise, these storms dumped generally 1-2��� over some of the same eastern real estate that already saw similar amounts during the morning. As a result, localized pockets of the area tallied 3+��� for the calendar day, although there were no reports of significant flooding. A few of the highest reported daily rain totals featured: 4.70��� in Milligan, 4.05��� in Polk, 3.44��� near Carleton and 3.08��� in Bradshaw.
Taking a closer look at the meteorological setup for the afternoon round, this was a fairly strongly-forced event in the mid-upper levels, as a potent shortwave trough swung out of CO into the heart of the Central Plains. At the surface, a rather well-defined and slow-moving, north-south oriented cold front provided a focus for storm initiation in eastern counties. Despite surface dewpoints along/ahead of the front rising into the low-mid 60s F, considerable daytime cloud cover helped hold down mixed-layer CAPE over the local area, with generally no more than 1000 J/kg. However, both deep-layer wind shear (around 50 knots) and low-level wind shear (around 30 knots) were rather strong, compensating somewhat for the lack of instability. On the regional scale, South Central Nebraska narrowly missed out on a more widespread severe storm event that impacted parts of central and eastern KS.

Hail in THAYER, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 15:50:00 to 04-OCT-16 15:55:00 (CST-6)
Location: CARLETON
Magnitude: 1.25 
Property damage: 2.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail up to the size of half dollars and torrential rainfall was reported.

Hail in THAYER, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 16:06:00 to 04-OCT-16 16:11:00 (CST-6)
Location: BRUNING
Magnitude: 2.00 
Property damage: 100.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail up to 2 inches in diameter was reported in Bruning.

Heavy Rain in THAYER, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: BRUNING
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: COOP Observer

A daily rainfall total of 3.05 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in YORK, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: BRADSHAW
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: COOP Observer

A daily rainfall total of 3.08 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in FILLMORE, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: MILLIGAN
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

A daily rainfall total of 4.70 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in FILLMORE, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: OHIOWA
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: CoCoRaHS

A daily rainfall total of 3.17 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in POLK, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: OSCEOLA
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: CoCoRaHS

A daily rainfall total of 3.53 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in POLK, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: POLK
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: COOP Observer

A daily rainfall total of 4.05 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Heavy Rain in THAYER, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 00:00:00 to 04-OCT-16 18:00:00 (CST-6)
Location: CARLETON
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: CoCoRaHS

A daily rainfall total of 3.44 inches was reported from separate rounds of morning and afternoon thunderstorms.

Hail in HAMILTON, NEBRASKA
From 04-OCT-16 02:20:00 to 04-OCT-16 02:20:00 (CST-6)
Location: AURORA
Magnitude: 1.50 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 100.00K
Reported by: Public

Hail ranging in size from nickels to ping pong balls was reported.