NOAA's National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

Tornadoes Strike North Central, Northeast and East Central Kansas

Nine tornadoes struck the Topeka National Weather Service County Warning Area during the late afternoon and evening hours of Thursday May 8th.  One supercell produced five tornadoes as it crossed Osage and Douglas counties.  The tornado with the longest path with this storm began 13 miles southwest of Lyndon and continued for 25 miles before ending six miles south of Overbrook.  The worst damage with this tornado was rated F3 on the Fujita tornado damage scale.  It produced extensive damage in Osage county and was 1/4 to 1/2 miles wide through most of its life. 

The storm survey has now been completed, see the write up, and there are some damage photos taken during the storm survey on May 9th at the end of this discussion. 

Osage County

These 3 images are video stills from Tim Marshall, taken in the vicinity of Lyndon in Osage County.

Douglas County

The same storm produced an additional tornado just southwest of Lawrence which moved into the southwestern parts of the city. Dave Patrick sent us a very nice series of pictures taken of the Lawrence tornado: 

Below is series of images in chronological order from the May 8th F2 tornado that hit southwest Lawrence causing extensive damage to the Aberdeen Apartments and many houses.  All photos are courtesy of Dave Patrick.  The red dot on the map is where Dave took the pictures from looking southeast through east-southeast as the tornado moves off to the northeast.

Southeast
		East-Southeast

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