EF4 tornado in Stanton County, Nebraska

This tornado developed about 5.5 miles southwest of the town of Pilger and moved directly northeast directly striking the town. The tornado did violent damage within the town of Pilger. Nearly 75 percent of the structures in the town received some damage, while structures near the center of the tornado were completely destroyed. A 5-year-old girl was killed and her mother seriously injured while attempting to take cover from their mobile home to a storm shelter. The tornado continued to move northeast past the town crossing Highway 275 about 1 mile west of the Cuming County line. The tornado continued northeast exiting Stanton County about 2.25 miles northeast of the city of Pilger into Cuming County.

During the early morning hours of June 16th a warm, humid and unstable airmass rapidly returned to eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. As this air returned to the region, scattered thunderstorms developed during the early morning hours and continued into early afternoon. These thunderstorms were responsible for mainly large hail, some of which was very large. These morning thunderstorms reinforced a warm front across eastern Nebraska during the afternoon. Extreme instability developed along this warm front and allowed for isolated thunderstorm development by mid afternoon, which quickly become severe. A single supercell thunderstorm went on to produce 4 violent tornadoes over the next 2 hours. Other strong and severe thunderstorms moved into northeast Nebraska in the evening and continued into the early morning hours.