photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A vehicle parked near Ninth and Connecticut streets in East Lawrence was heavily damage after a tree fell on it following overnight storms on June 9, 2026.

UPDATED 12:20 P.M. JUNE 9

A middle-of-the-night storm caused tornado sirens to blare and sleepy residents to scurry, while damaging both properties and trees in various parts of Lawrence.

What the storm — which first responders said did not produce any known injuries — didn’t produce was much time for people to respond. North Lawrence resident Jeff Joseph has one of the few homes with a basement on his Locust Street block. Normally, a storm of that magnitude is guaranteed to bring a few neighbors to his house for cover.

Not this time.

“They didn’t have a chance,” Joseph said of the storm, which came through shortly after midnight on Tuesday morning and produced strong winds for just a couple of minutes, he estimated.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Remains of a storm damaged tree are pictured at Eighth and Locust in North Lawrence on June 9, 2026.

Holly Balch, who also lives near Eighth and Locust streets, said one of her neighbors did have a tree land on their house and penetrate into the interior of the home. Considering that, she said the large pile of downed limbs in her yard and debris on her roof was manageable.

“We were in our closet,” Balch said of when the storm struck. “It is a storm shelter. We had it built when we added onto the house.

“Ours is kind of limited mostly to the ground and right in here,” she said of some smaller limbs on the roof of the house. “We got lucky.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Holly Balch was picking up storm debris at her North Lawrence home on June 9, 2026.

Whether the storm that moved through Lawrence and parts of Douglas County was a small tornado is still being determined by National Weather Service officials. But forecasters certainly were worried about a tornado possibly forming as the midnight hour struck.

Residents across the county were awakened by weather alerts on their phones or radio, or by the sounding of the county’s emergency storm warning sirens, shortly after midnight when the National Weather Service in Topeka issued a tornado warning for Lawrence, Eudora and parts of rural Douglas County. While a tornado was not on the ground, forecasters saw activity on radar that suggested a tornado was likely to form.

Chelsea Picha, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, told the Journal-World Tuesday morning that although there were no confirmed tornadoes, teams are reviewing damage in parts of Lawrence to see whether there was something that could be confirmed as a tornado.

The tornado warning was allowed to expire before 1 a.m., but a thunderstorm with strong straight-line winds did move through the area. Picha said the current estimation was the city saw 50 to 60 mph winds during the storm, and some crews were assessing damage reports of 80 to 90 mph winds in pockets of the storm.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Stephen Chavez was picking up debris June 9, 2026 from the front yard of his home near Eighth and Locust streets.

While North Lawrence appeared to have some of the heavier damage from the storm, other areas also were impacted. In East Lawrence city crews arrived at Ninth and Connecticut Streets at about 8 a.m. to address a large tree which had its roots ripped from the ground, tearing up a brick sidewalk and landing on a parked vehicle in the process.

City crews on Tuesday morning also were in downtown Lawrence working on a street lamp and pole that had blown over during the storm, and multiple city trucks were crisscrossing the city filled with storm debris.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

City crews on June 9, 2026 were working on a street lamp that had been blown down on Massachusetts Street during the night’s storm.

Some of the downed trees appeared to fall victim to wet ground that could not hold the trees roots. The total rainfall for June in Lawrence as of Monday was 2.04 inches, according to Picha, which is about .66 inches above average. During Tuesday morning’s storm, Picha said readings at the Lawrence Municipal Airport reported 1.3 inches of rain fall during the event.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A tree near Ninth and Connecticut streets had its roots ripped from the wet soil as part of early-morning storms on June 9, 2026.

The Lawrence Police Department on its social media sites said that officers responded to about a dozen calls related to downed trees on roadways overnight. Laura McCabe, the communications manager with the department, told the Journal-World officers reported there was a streetlight down at Eighth and Massachusetts Streets and large branches that fell on Tennessee Street between Tenth and 11th Streets around 1:15 a.m.

George Diepenbrock, the public information officer for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, told the Journal-World via email deputies handled six calls for roadway obstructions caused by trees across the county. He said the Sheriff’s Office also received a call about damage to a power line west of Lawrence, and Douglas County Emergency Management “is still collecting damage reports” to understand the full extent.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Residents along Locust Street in North Lawrence lost power in the early morning hours of June 9, 2026 as storms rolled through the area. Evergy crews were still working to restore power near midday.

As of 11:45 a.m., Evergy reported around 50 total outages across Lawrence, with about 660 customers without power, and estimated times for when power would be restored “are unavailable due to storm activity,” according to its website.

On top of the overnight storms, Lawrence and Douglas County is under a heat advisory from the NWS from 12 to 9 p.m. today. In Lawrence, heat index values can reach as high as 108 degrees. Diepenbrock said it is important to check on neighbors and friends to make sure they have a cool place to go if needed.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

An old gas station sign survived, but a large tree near Eighth and Locust in North Lawrence, pictured June 9, 2026, did not.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A tree, pictured June 9, 2026, fell just a few feet away from Iowa Street traffic as part of overnight storms. The tree, south of the Iowa Street and Harvard Road intersection, just missed blocking the busy street.