April 8th 2011 huge hail over south central Kansas

Huge Hail Slams South Central Kansas

April 8th 2011

What happened: Severe storms dumped a large swath of golf ball to baseball size hail across parts of south central Kansas on Friday, April 8th 2011.

Meteorological Background: Storms first developed over northwest and north-central Oklahoma along a dryline during the early evening hours of April 8th. With abundant instability, the storms rapidly became severe as they tracked slowly east-northeast. Many of the large hail producing storms that affected south central Kansas were storms that split from the large eastward moving supercells over northern Oklahoma. While huge hail is common with these splitting storms, tornadoes are less likely.

Radar animation from around 5 pm through 930 pm on April 8th.

Visible satellite animation showing the storms rapidly erupting during the early evening hours of April 8th.

Quarter size hail that fell in Harper. Picture by Nikki Hightree.

2.75 inch hail that fell at 14422 SW Prairie Creek in Butler County. Picture by Kevin Leis courtesy Butler County Emergency Management.

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