PALISADE -- The tornado that Charlie and Dolan Smith photographed north of Palisade early Wednesday evening was probably the same supercell cloud that prompted weather officials in Hayes Center to blow tornado sirens and send residents to their basements.

While high winds and the tornado don't appear to have caused any damage, hail the size of baseballs shattered car and home windows and ripped holes in roofs in Hayes Center.

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"It wasn't a nice, cylindrical shape, like you see on television," Charlie Smith said this morning about the tornado that she and her husband spotted about 12 miles north of Palisade and west/southwest of Hayes Center, probably sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. "It was dirty and so ugly," she said.

Ten miles south, back at the Smith home, hail shattered every window on the north side. Even this morning, at 1:55 a.m., the National Weather Service in Goodland and Lee Bird Field in North Platte reported hail between grapefruit and softball size in an area three miles west-northwest of Palisade.

In Hayes Center, the tornado whistle sounded about 7:45 p.m., Wednesday, and Cheryl May said they headed for the basement. "I don't think anyone spotted a tornado, but the clouds were so horrible-looking," she said. "There definitely was the possibility."

But it was the hail that did the damage in Hayes Center. The first storm, Cheryl said, came about 7:45 p.m., and pitched hailstones the size of baseballs at every exposed surface.

Johnny Scott, who owns the grocery store on Hayes Center's main street, said the hail "banged - really, really hard" off the roof. "Vicious ... absolutely vicious," he said. "I've never seen anything like this."

Hailstones broke out both the front and back windows of the car Johnny couldn't get under cover, as it did on most every other vehicle in town. The ground is pock-marked, he said, where giant stones pounded the dirt.

Johnny said farmers are reporting losses of up to 90 percent in corn and wheat fields near Hayes Center. "I'm sure animals are injured ... banged up and bruised," he said.

Johnny said he's heard reports of hailstones breaking through roofs -- Cheryl said they have a leaky roof.

A second storm, after 9 o'clock or so, Cheryl said, also threw hailstones at the town, but they weren't as large. "We're all hoping we can get roof repairs done before any more rain. We hate to say we don't want rain," she said. "We're just thankful that no one was injured" in either storm.

As the first storm moved further north-northeast, the hail may have gotten smaller, but golfball-sized hail is destructive too.

Mark and Cindy Fritsche, who farm southwest of Maywood, report holes and cracks in the siding on the west side of their home. "The wheat's wiped out," Cindy said.

"I've never seen clouds like that ... everything was turning right on top of us, right over us," Cindy said. They retreated to the basement, and were thankful "we didn't blow away," she said.

The Fritsches' neighbors report hailstones that broke windows -- even double-paned windows.

In storms that swept across Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas Wednesday evening, the weather service in Goodland reported that trained spotters watched a tornado pick up debris six miles south of Champion in Chase County, very late, at 11:13 p.m.

Another report, just seven minutes later, indicates that a tornado damaged a farmstead four miles south-southeast of Champion. And at seven minutes before midnight, a tornado was reported one mile northeast of Wauneta.

Champion and Imperial also reported hail, up to golfball size, just before midnight. The Bureau of Reclamation reports that Enders got 1.8 inches of rain.

Goodland reports that rural areas 16 to 20 miles north of Benkelman were hit with hail up to tennis ball size and hail covering the ground, about 1:30 a.m., today. Goodland said that an area six miles north-northwest of Parks was hit with quarter-size hail for four minutes.

Curtis, Stockville and Eustis all reported hail, from mothball to golfball size, between 9 p.m. and midnight.