Fierce winds swept across Colorado and the Great Plains on Wednesday, damaging buildings, closing highways and overturning tractor-trailers, officials said.
There were unconfirmed, preliminary reports of tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa, according to the National Weather Service.
Forecasters warned of an “extremely powerful storm system” that would bring the threat of severe thunderstorms and damaging winds across the Great Plains and Upper Midwest Wednesday night.
Roads in western Kansas, including a portion of Interstate 70, were closed due to blowing dust and crashes, the state Department of Transportation said.
Tractor-trailers in the state blew over and there were brownout conditions and close to zero visibility near Wakeeney, Kansas, and officials urged people to stay off the highways. Kansas State University Salinas said its campus suffered weather damage and was closed.
“If you don’t have to travel, don’t. Stay home,” the Kansas DOT urged in a tweet.
There were likely a few fast-moving, relatively weak tornadoes in south-central Nebraska, Ryan Pfannkuch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hastings, said.
While the thunderstorm threat had largely passed in the area, “we’re still getting winds strong enough to possibly cause damage,” he said.
Parts of Jefferson County, Colorado, saw wind gusts of up to 95 mph Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Boulder said.
More than 500 flights at Denver International Airport were delayed and almost 150 were canceled, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. The Federal Aviation Administration put a ground delay in place until 6 p.m., an airport spokesperson said.
In Colorado Springs, firefighters responded to hundreds of calls even as the roof of its headquarters was blown off, the fire department said.
Video released by the Nebraska State Patrol showed a big rig topple in front of a trooper on Interstate 80 near Lincoln on Wednesday afternoon. The driver was not injured.
High wind warnings stretched from far southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Kansas to northern Michigan on Wednesday night.
The weather caused air traffic controllers at Kansas City International Airport to evacuate the “tower cab” for a little less than an hour, the airport said.
The Colorado Department of Transportation tweeted several roads were closed due to the high winds. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Golden said a highway was closed due to downed power lines and a truck that toppled over.
More than 130,000 customers were without power in Iowa, according to tracking site poweroutage.us. High winds affected semis and other high-profile vehicles and led to crashes, and the state patrol at one point warned drivers to get to a safe place.
The high winds battering the central U.S. come days after deadly storms and tornadoes that struck Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri. More than 70 people died in Kentucky alone.
The National Weather Service said Wednesday that one of those tornadoes, which devastated the Kentucky city of Mayfield and others, was an EF4 with 190 mph winds.
President Joe Biden visited Kentucky on Wednesday and pledged federal help.