Severe weather made it’s first appearance of the season in southeast Iowa Friday night. Just before 7p.m. The National Weather Service Quad Cities office issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for portions of Washington, Iowa, Keokuk and Jefferson counties, for a line of showers and storms moving across the listening area as fast as 70mph. The main threat with these storms were straight-line winds. Three subsequent warnings were issued for the same line of cells as they made their way through the rest of Washington and Johnson Counties and into Henry and Louisa Counties. Washington County warnings were allowed to expire at 9p.m. Wind gusts of 60+ mph were reported by trained spotters in Richland in Keokuk County, Ainsworth and the Washington Airport. Gusts of 70+ were recorded north of Washington on G36, and in New London and Oakland Mills in Henry County. The strongest winds of the night were seen at the Washington County Emergency Operations Center in the City of Washington at 78mph. Power line damage was reported in Brighton. Tree damage was reported in Columbus Junction. Alliant Energy listed outages related to the storm in Williamsburg, Ainsworth, Brighton, Coppock, Crawfordsville and Wayland.

Five members of the KCII Severe Weather Action Team responded with coverage. Had the power gone out, coverage would have continued with our emergency backup generators. The one to count on for up-to-the-minute severe weather coverage is AM and FM KCII.