By 3 p.m. five tornadoes were reported in a cluster of counties in northeast Kansas, where law enforcement reported baseball-size hail that caused damage to cars and homes in Meriden northeast of Topeka. The same storm once more created an additional large tornado this time at the west of Harveyville, Kansas, around 10:30 p.m.
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Early Thursday evening, the weather service said a tornado knocked down tree limbs and damaged some outbuildings near the 4,400-resident northeastern Kansas town of Wamego.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback visited the area Thursday and took an aerial view at the impact of the tornado that spanned roughly a quarter of a mile.
Cleanup is expected to begin after a tornado that officials say stayed on the ground for about 90 minutes damaged or destroyed about 20 homes in rural northern Kansas.
A survey team from the National Weather Service office at Topeka rated the tornado as an EF4 on a scale of tornado strength – EF5 is the highest – with estimated peak winds of 180 miles per hour. There was at least one tornado in Wichita County, Kansas, Saturday evening but no damage was reported.
Dickinson County fire district one chief Paul Froelich told The Associated Press early Thursday that crews have completed secondary searches of the damaged properties.
“And we had outstanding early warning on this….” Consider also, this is Kansas. “This is Tornado Alley”.
Strong storms are likely to head across Kansas into Missouri, where “hail and damaging wind gusts along with a couple of tornadoes remain possible”, the NWS said.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said there was a “moderate risk” that Kansas would have tornadoes on Thursday, including some twisters with winds above 136 miles per hour.
A twister at Chapman June 11, 2008, tore a path of destruction six blocks wide. Officials said one woman died, 100 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged, and 80 percent of the town was damaged.
Hail and high wind hit the Front Range of Colorado on Thursday as thunderstorms moved across the Rockies.
“The tornado developed around 6 p.m. CDT near Minneapolis, Kansas”, AccuWeather Storm Warning Meteorologist Amber McGinnis said.
The latest round of bad weather brought heavy thunderstorms to the Plains states again, with tornado watches in effect in several states after several days of severe weather, according to the Weather Channel.
As of 9:15 p.m., Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Ben Gardner reported there were no confirmed reports of injuries or deaths from the storm.
Several people in Ford County, Kansas, reportedly were hurt in Tuesday’s storms, said Andrew White, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.
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The National Weather Service has already reported several tornado warnings in Texas and Kansas early Thursday morning.
