Central/North-Central Kansas Severe Thunderstorms
April 24th, 2015
*Story will continue to be updated, so please check back*
Last Updated: 1pm Monday, April 27th
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Overview: Strong to severe thunderstorms affected portions of central Kansas, and especially north-central Kansas along and north of I-70 during the late afternoon and evening hours of Friday, April 24th. The severe weather occurred near the intersection of a warm front and dryline, ahead of a potent upper level disturbance approaching from the southwest. The primary severe-weather maker was a supercell thunderstorm that developed near I-70 over Ellis County around 4pm, where it produced a tornado and baseball size hail just north of the town of Emmeram. The supercell continued tracking east, producing severe weather across primarily Russell and Lincoln counties. A brief tornado was observed just southwest of Paradise in Russell county, along with golf ball size hail and 80 mph winds. North of the town of Russell, tennis ball size hail was observed, along with 80 mph winds. The town of Lucas was next, when hail to the size of tennis balls scoured the community. In fact, local emergency management indicated that virtually every car and roof sustained significant hail damage across town, and the skylights in the middle school were blown out. The supercell continued east, producing tennis ball size hail just north of Wilson in Lincoln county, and 60 mph winds north of Ellsworth. Another brief tornado touched in Lincoln county near Sylvan Grove destroying the press box and damaging the roof of the local high school. This tornado was rated an EF1 with winds around 90 mph. Thereafter, numerous storm mergers weakened the storm, producing winds up to 55 mph, hail up to nickel size and locally heavy rain. |
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Overview loop of radar data, warnings, and local storm reports.
Above is a map of preliminary storm reports. |
Radar
Russell County
 6:27pm - Reflectivity cross section of the hailcore near Lucas, Kansas with reflectivities exceeded 70 dBZ (white color). Black arrows along the blue line show parcel trajectories in the updraft and downdraft regions. |
 6:27pm - ZDR cross section showed primarily spherical hydrometeors with values primarily around 0 dB within the hailcore (grey color). |
 6:27pm - KDP cross section showed little melting of the large hail taking place as values are primarily between 0.5 and 2 deg/km in the hailcore (light purple and red colors). |
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Lincoln County
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Damage to the roof of the local high school in Sylvan Grove |
Roofing materials torn off the local high school in Sylvan Grove. |
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Press box destroyed and strewed across the foodball field at the local high school in Sylvan Grove. |
Materials from the press box scattered in all directions. |
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