High winds, hail strike Saturday

Some of the damage Saturday night included the uprooting of this birch tree in McCook. (Gazette photo)

National Weather Service of Goodland, Kansas, reported high winds that toppled trees and moved grain bins, and hail that measured up to 23⁄4 inches in diameter accompanying a storm that swept through Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas Saturday evening.

In Rawlins County in Kansas, law enforcement reported 21⁄2- to 23⁄4-inch hail near Atwood and Beardsley. In Decatur County, residents reported 13⁄4-inch hail, 70-mile-an-hour winds and .60 of an inch of rain.

With winds clocked up to 80 miles an hour in Rawlins County, trees a foot in diameter were uprooted; others lost their top halves.

In Furnas County in Nebraska, at Hendley, two empty grain bins at the elevator were moved off their bases and crushed. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds at nearby Cambridge came with quarter-size hail and heavy rain.

Residents reported hail measuring up to 23⁄4 inches embedded in heavy rain near Arapahoe.

Sixty-mile-an-hour winds hit Hayes County; Goodland reported 70-mile-an-hour winds at McCook.