Rare Southern U.S. Winter Storm; Dangerous Cold Weather For Much of the Eastern U.S.; Critical Fire Weather for Southern California

A rare winter storm impacting the Southern U.S. will move offshore Wednesday morning. Behind the storm, arctic air will continue encompassing the eastern two-thirds of the Nation with only a slow return to normal temperatures expected by the end of the week. Moderate to strong Santa Ana winds and low humidity will maintain Critical fire weather conditions in southern California into Thursday. Read More >

Overview

During the early morning hours of the 26th of April severe thunderstorms began to develop across northern KS. A few of these storms produced hail the size of baseballs. Later in the morning the storms went on to produce damaging wind across far northeast KS. The outflow from these thunderstorms became the focus for new convection during the afternoon once the atmosphere was very unstable. Storms became widespread mainly producing large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes. None these tornadoes caused much damage, but the hail and wind did in several locations. The widespread coverage of storms produced heavy rainfall for several hours over the same locations causing localized flash flooding. There were reports of evacuations and swift water rescues mainly in and around Shawnee county.