Tornadoes Strike North Central, Northeast and East Central Kansas

Page 2 - Tracks and Radar Data

Tornado Track MapPreliminary tracks of the tornadoes across Osage and Douglas counties. Preliminary damage reports indicate that extensive damage was done to an apartment complex and numerous homes in southwest Lawrence.  The tornado also destroyed outbuildings and power poles north and west of Lyndon in Osage county.

Tornado Track Map  Seven homes were destroyed, several more damaged, and three injuries were reported near Kincaid in Anderson county by a half mile wide F2 tornado that moved across the southeast portion of that county.  

There were 43 reports of severe weather across North Central, Northeast, and East Central Kansas, including nine tornadoes.  The severe weather occurred in two episodes.  The first was with storms that moved across the area during the early morning hours of May 8th.  These storms dropped large hail (up to the size of golf balls) across North Central and East Central Kansas.  A second round of storms hit the area during the late afternoon and early evening hours of May 8th.  These storms produced the nine tornadoes as well as numerous reports of large hail.

Surface Map

A surface map from 4 pm on Thursday May 8th.  The map shows a warm front across Northeast Kansas from Concordia to Topeka.  Temperatures south of the warm front jumped dramatically.  Between Salina and Concordia (about 50 miles) the temperature varied 25 degrees!  A dryline can be seen across Central Kansas, just east of a line from Russell to Medicine Lodge.  As the dryline moved through, dew point temperatures fell nearly 40 degrees!  The tornadic storms developed along both the dryline and the warm front.

Veolcity Image

A Storm Relative Velocity image from the Topeka WSR-88D.  The image shows the tornadic circulation located about two miles west of Lyndon.  The green colors represent air that is moving toward the radar while red colors represent air that is moving away from the radar.  The bright green and bright red color pixels located next each other between Lyndon and Osage City indicate air that is spinning rapidly counter-clockwise.

 

Reflectivity Hook Echo

A reflectivity image from the Topeka WSR-88D.  This image shows the tornadic storm with the classic "hook" echo.  The tornado is located about 2 miles west of Lyndon at this time.

Reflectivity Supercells

A Topeka WSR-88D image from the evening of May 8th.  The image shows four tornadic supercells.

Next Page...The Damage
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