Wednesday night storms bring high winds to central Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa – Wednesday morning began with early morning storms and the day ended on an equally stormy note.

A powerful line of storms moved across Iowa Wednesday evening. The thunderstorms caused large amounts of damage and produced wind gusts near 90 mph around the Omaha metro. As the line entered Iowa it weakened somewhat but still produced damaging winds.

The highest recorded winds were at the Des Moines airport, where a 66 mph gust was measured. Near Menlo in Adair county, a wind gust of 64 mph was recorded. Weather stations in Atlantic, Audubon, and Lamoni recorded gusts at 59 mph, and a wind gust of 58 mph was reported in Norwalk.

The strong winds caused power outages and tree damage across the Des Moines metro. Tree damage was also reported in Casey (Guthrie county) and De Soto (Dallas county) among other areas. Viewers submitted photos of the damage and incredible shelf cloud formations:

Wednesday evening’s storms were fairly fast-moving, so they didn’t drop a lot of rain despite heavy rainfall rates.

The next several days are expected to bring quiet weather, but temperatures remain in the mid to upper 80s. Highs return to the 90s over the weekend, and some storms are possible late Sunday night into early Monday. For more on the forecast, click here .

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