Isolated tornadoes, hail and dangerously strong winds are expected to be the biggest threats this evening, said Brad Fillbach, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
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The tornado on Wednesday night near 1,400-resident Chapman, 140 miles west of Kansas City, Kansas, damaged or destroyed about 20 homes but edged past Chapman’s southern side after forecasters declared a “tornado emergency” for the town.
Storm chasers with StormChasingVideo.com and JWSevereWeather.comdeployed a 360 degree camera in the path of a tornado near Abilene, Kansas on Wednesday.
Troopers went house to house checking on residents, but did not report any injuries or fatalities. This includes damages from a tornado that touched down north of Solomon in northern Dickinson County and remained on the ground across Dickinson County for over an hour.
Severe storms that produced at least one tornado moved through the area overnight. Estimates are that it was a quarter- to a half-mile wide at times, he said.
Authorities say one person drowned when a vehicle was swept off a road in central Oklahoma.
The tornado started about 7:10 p.m. and ended about 8:40 p.m. The tornado’s path covered about 26 miles, according to the National Weather Service. The good news is that, according to Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, the Dodge City tornado “just, and I mean just” missed the center of downtown; however, that doesn’t mean there weren’t multiple injuries – including two critical injuries – and it doesn’t mean there wasn’t significant damage. In addition to cleaning up the damaged homes, crews will also have to remove scores of trees blocking rural roadways. In Arkansas, a 13-year-old boy was found safe three hours after falling into a flooded drainage pipe. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said no one was injured.
Police say the twister struck a couple of residential neighborhoods in the Bryan-College Station area early Thursday afternoon, mangling trees and a number of roofs.
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The National Weather Service will conduct damage surveys Wednesday. Officials said one woman died, 100 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged, and 80 percent of the town had at least minor damage.
