Tornadoes torment north, south Kansas

Supercell storms spawn two swarms of twisters in central part of state

Two swarms of tornadoes nearly 200 miles apart left residents of north-central and south-central Kansas salvaging property and assessing damage on Sunday.

The twisters were spawned by supercell thunderstorms that struck Saturday evening in a four-county region near the Nebraska border and a two-county area along the Oklahoma state line, the National Weather Service said.

Just one minor injury, in Sumner County south of Wichita, was reported in the violent weather. But the powerful wind behind the storms was blamed for two deaths in two separate accidents Saturday evening on Interstate 70 in northwest Kansas, including that of state Sen. Stan Clark, R-Oakley.

Bill Gargan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, said Saturday evening’s storms were typical for Kansas weather in springtime as areas of very moist and very dry air collided.

Sunday brought a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms popping up in Republic and Cloud counties — the heart of the area struck by the previous night’s northern tornado activity — but the statewide outlook was otherwise expected to be positive through today.

“Right now, it looks like we won’t see any violent weather this Memorial Day,” Gargan said. “It looks like everything is going well east of Kansas.”

Meteorologists’ post-storm survey of north-central Kansas on Sunday confirmed what the storm spotters and law enforcement officials had reported Sunday evening, when a series of thunderstorms broke out around 6 p.m. and pelted the region with hail as big as softballs.

In northwestern Cloud County, the weather service said, a tornado capable of “considerable” damage traveled along a three-mile path northwest of Jamestown, and two smaller tornadoes left tracks as well. Several homes were damaged in the Jamestown area.

Just to the north, seven tornado tracks were identified in Republic County, where damage included a roof peeled off a Dairy Queen near Belleville and a tractor-trailer flipped over by high wind on U.S. Highway 81 north of the city.

A half-mile wide tornado approaches Jamestown in Cloud County. The twister damaged several homes Saturday in the Jamestown area, then continued to grow until it reached one mile wide, storm chasers in the area reported.

The Kansas Emergency Management Agency reported that at least seven farm homes were damaged in Cloud County and two homes were damaged in Republic County.

Hail and high wind also hit Washington County as the storms blew east, and a tornado left a minor trail of damage in the Marshall County community of Oketo, the weather service said.

About 200 miles to the south, damage was also being assessed Sunday in Harper and Sumner counties, where supercell thunderstorms — whose interior rotations spin off funnel clouds — began striking about 7 p.m. Saturday.

Authorities reported four homes in ruins and 10 damaged in Harper County, while at least seven houses were damaged or destroyed in adjacent Sumner County.

Weather Service meteorologists identified the strongest of the south-central tornadoes as a category F3, capable of “severe” damage, that traveled about five miles across Sumner County near Conway Springs.