Tornadoes, damaging wind gusts blast Plains before severe weather shifts east for Easter weekend

The first round of severe storms pushed through the Plains on Thursday, during what was expected to be an active weekend for severe weather.More than 1 million people were included in a Level 3 out of 5 risk zone from NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, with Omaha, Nebraska, in the bull’s-eye.While the city proper missed out on seeing the strongest of the storms, it didn’t prevent warning sirens from blaring on the north side of the city, and tornadoes from being spotted in nearby Iowa.Several storm chasers, including FOX Weather Storm Tracker Brandon Copic, captured video of a tornado forming then rolling across the fields of Missouri Valley, Iowa, on Thursday evening. In eastern Nebraska, winds of greater than 80 mph and baseball-sized hail caused what appeared to resemble a dust storm or even a gustnado around Schuyler, Nebraska.The region was under various alerts at the time, and FOX Weather Exclusive Storm Trackers Corey Gerken and Brandon Copic captured the scenes on video.The dust was so thick, it reduced visibilities outside of Omaha and made travel treacherous.Despite the scenes, there were no reports of any widespread damage and reported power outages generally stayed below a few thousand customers.Based on radar data, the storms appeared to be big hailers, with significant values of vertically integrated liquid, indicating the potential for damaging ice.The threat of tornadoes continued well into the night with a large twister spotted around Tabor, Iowa, after sunset.Videos and Doppler radar indicated that a strong tornado passed through Fremont County, and the National Weather Service office even described the event as a ‘particularly dangerous situation.’The NWS upped the alert to a rare Tornado Emergency and said the twister was heading towards the town of Essex, Iowa.The supercell impacted communities over dozens of miles, but because of nightfall, storm chasers and local officials were limited in determining the immediate scope of the damage.S...