The KCII Severe Weather Action Team brought live coverage as a severe thunderstorm moved across Washington County and southeast Iowa Friday morning. At about 10:35 a.m. a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for southern Washington County, northwestern Henry County, southeastern Keokuk County, and Jefferson County. The storm produced cloud to ground lightning and strong wind gusts. Wind gusts reached 52 miles per hour at the Fairfield airport. Park Manager Nick Young at Lake Darling State Park shared what he saw at about 11 a.m., “We have a lot of straight line winds and I would say there’s a good amount of lightning in the area too, and striking pretty close. I think that lightning was less than a mile away. Ten minutes ago, all it was was cloudy, and now there’s strong straight line winds and lightning, and it’s torrential downpour. There’s a lot of campers out here and a bunch of other people, daytime users of the park. We have, all of our bathrooms in the park are storm shelters.” Trees and power lines were down in Brighton along Railroad Street.

At 11:30 a.m. the National Weather Service extended a severe thunderstorm warning for south central Washington County, Henry County, west central Des Moines County, Van Buren County, southern Jefferson County, northwestern Lee County until 12:30 p.m. At noon the warning expired for Washington County.

Alliant Energy had many customers without power with 208 in Jefferson County, 48 in Washington County, about 788 near Richland in Keokuk County, and over 2,000 in Wapello County. Had the power gone out, KCII would’ve stayed live on the air with our emergency backup generators. A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect until 6 p.m. Friday for Washington County.

(A tree the fell in Brighton is pictured above.)