Mainly between 3:30-6:30 p.m. CDT on this Saturday afternoon, a relatively narrow, southwest-northeast swath of South Central Nebraska experienced severe thunderstorms featuring several reports of damaging winds up to around 70 MPH and hail up to ping pong ball size. The vast majority of local severe activity unfolded within 10 miles either side of a line extending from Elwood-Overton-Ravenna-St. Paul-Wolbach. Within this corridor, the most notable wind damage occurred within and very near Howard County, as places extending from just east of Farwell and through the St. Paul, Elba and Wolbach areas experienced winds estimated to at least 65-70 MPH, causing fairly extensive tree damage and also taking down some irrigation pivots and power lines. Outside of this main area of damaging wind (and earlier in the event), the highest unofficial mesonet-measured wind gust of 60 MPH occurred in Elm Creek. Also outside the main severe wind zone (and a bit later in the evening) a rogue, briefly severe storm that flared up behind the main activity blew down a large tree in a neighborhood along the Platte River near Central City. As for hail, the largest reported stones to ping pong ball size occurred between Lexington and Overton (including at the Overton golf course) and also in rural northwestern Buffalo County.
Breaking down event evolution/timing, this was a fairly classic setup for high-based severe storms, largely driven by a combination of intense heating and decent low level convergence along a well-defined summer cold front gradually tracking across Nebraska from northwest-to-southeast. Storms first ignited just southwest of the local area (near McCook) shortly before 3 p.m. CDT in a very hot/deeply mixed airmass (shortly before initiation the McCook airport reported a temp/dewpoint of 107/56 F). Between 3:30-4:30 p.m. CDT strong to severe storms quickly unzipped northeastward along the frontal zone into western portions of South Central Nebraska, assuming a mix of multicell and brief supercell structures as they first impacted primarily Gosper/Dawson/Buffalo counties. Over the next few hours, the most intense storms marched across parts of mainly Sherman, Howard, eastern Greeley and far western Nance counties before departing the local area into eastern Nebraska by around 6:30 p.m. CDT. In the wake of this main event, mostly weak convection roamed predominantly southern/eastern portions of South Central Nebraska well into the night...with the briefly-severe storm near Central City around 8 p.m. CDT serving as the last gasp of anything feisty. Getting back to the meteorological setup, this event was fairly weakly-forced in the mid-upper levels, with southern Nebraska residing along the southern fringes of modestly-strong, quasi-zonal flow directed between an upper ridge centered over the Southern Rockies and a trough centered far to the north over southern Canada. As mentioned, the main player at the surface was the invading cold front, with the combination of frontal forcing and intense heating/stout instability proving sufficient to overcome notable capping (evidenced by 700 millibar temperatures averaging 14-16 C). This was actually one of the top-5 hottest days of 2022 across the majority of South Central Nebraska, with most stations topping out between 99-106 F.  Through most of this event, the local mesoscale environment featured 1000-3000 J/kg mixed-layer CAPE and 30-35 knots of deep layer wind shear.

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:07:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:07:00 (CST-6)
Location: LEXINGTON
Magnitude: 1.50 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Public

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:13:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:13:00 (CST-6)
Location: OVERTON
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Social Media

Hail to at least quarter size fell at Overton Golf Club.

Hail in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:17:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:17:00 (CST-6)
Location: OVERTON
Magnitude: 0.88 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Thunderstorm Wind in BUFFALO, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:37:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:37:00 (CST-6)
Location: ELM CREEK
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.

Hail in BUFFALO, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:40:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:45:00 (CST-6)
Location: PLEASANTON
Magnitude: 1.50 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Social Media

Thunderstorm Wind in DAWSON, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:46:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:46:00 (CST-6)
Location: OVERTON
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 2.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Storm Chaser

Several tree limbs around four inches in diameter were downed in Overton.

Thunderstorm Wind in BUFFALO, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 15:54:00 to 23-JUL-22 15:54:00 (CST-6)
Location: ELM CREEK
Magnitude: 51.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

A wind gust of 59 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located three miles northwest of Elm Creek.

Hail in SHERMAN, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:07:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:07:00 (CST-6)
Location: HAZARD
Magnitude: 1.25 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Thunderstorm Wind in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:37:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:37:00 (CST-6)
Location: FARWELL
Magnitude: 61.00 EG
Property damage: 500.00K
Crop damage: 2.00M
Reported by: Social Media

Wind gusts estimated to be at least 70 MPH resulted in tree and crop damage in the area, as well as overturned pivots.

Hail in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:44:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:44:00 (CST-6)
Location: ELBA
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail up to the size of quarters was accompanied by wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH. This wind resulted in tree damage in Elba, including tree limbs near one foot in diameter downed and whole trees blown over.

Thunderstorm Wind in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:46:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:46:00 (CST-6)
Location: ELBA
Magnitude: 61.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Fire Department/Rescue

Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in tree damage in Elba, including tree limbs near one foot in diameter downed and whole trees blown over. Hail up to the size of quarters accompanied this wind.

Thunderstorm Wind in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:52:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:52:00 (CST-6)
Location: ST PAUL
Magnitude: 61.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in tree damage across much of St. Paul, especially across the southern part of town.

Hail in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:55:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:55:00 (CST-6)
Location: CUSHING
Magnitude: 0.88 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Social Media

Thunderstorm Wind in HOWARD, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 16:59:00 to 23-JUL-22 16:59:00 (CST-6)
Location: ST PAUL
Magnitude: 50.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

A wind gust of 58 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located two miles southeast of St. Paul.

Thunderstorm Wind in GREELEY, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 17:07:00 to 23-JUL-22 17:07:00 (CST-6)
Location: WOLBACH
Magnitude: 56.00 EG
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Public

Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in some tree damage in Wolbach, including downed tree limbs around eight inches in diameter.

Thunderstorm Wind in HAMILTON, NEBRASKA
From 23-JUL-22 18:50:00 to 23-JUL-22 18:50:00 (CST-6)
Location: HORDVILLE
Magnitude: 56.00 EG
Property damage: 1.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in a tree being blown over.