April 2-3rd 2015 Damaging Straight line wind event, Hail and Tornadoes

Damaging Straight Line Winds, Hail, and Tornadoes

Across Central and Southeast Kansas

April 2-3th, 2015

Story will continue to be updated, check back:

last updated at 4am Sat April 4th

Overview:

Severe thunderstorms developed rapidly and became supercellular on the evening of April 2nd across far southeast Kansas and produced two brief tornadoes in Labette County. As the initial storms continued to move southeast into Oklahoma and Missouri Thursday night, a severe thunderstorm developed near the border of Colorado and Kansas. This severe thunderstorm continued to develop and intensify across central Kansas and took on bow echo-like characteristics. This bow-echo later produced damaging straight-line winds and large hail across much of central and south central Kansas. As the bow-echo approached Sedgwick and Harvey counties, channeled microbursts developed and caused significant straight-line wind damage. This dangerous storm continued to move through south central Kansas during the early morning hours and took on supercellular characteristics as it moved into southeast Kansas producing hail up to the size of tennis balls!

Overview loop of radar data, warnings, and local storm reports.

Above is a map of preliminary local storm reports.

Channeled Microbursts Across Sedgwick and

Harvey Counties Damage

The storm that impacted much of central to southeast Kansas developed along the Colorado and Kansas border on the during late afternoon of April 2nd. It left behind a track of high wind and hail reports extending across the state of Kansas. As the storms moved into Barton, Rice, and Reno counties reports of wind damage, including snapped power lines and uprooted trees, with golf ball size hail. As the storm continued southeast into Harvey and Sedgwick counties, individual bowing segments within the main bow echo developed and producing channeled microbursts. These channeled microbursts resulted in significant straight line wind damage in Newton and northern Wichita, where surveying supported winds around 100 mph. Across northeast Wichita a hanger was destroyed at the Jabara Airport and a 1/10 of a mile of power poles were snapped off at the base. In Newton, portions of the city had damage including roof and tree damage. Near Whitewater a mobile home was destroyed by the straightline winds, yet the whole family survived. As of Friday morning, nearly 50,000 people woke up without power as many power lines came down across the area.

After impacting south central Kansas, the storm continued to drop into southeast Kansas and took on supercellular characteristics as it encountered better low level moisture and instability producing 4 inch hail.

Highest measured wind speeds:

Time (CDT)	Speed (mph)	Location
11:53 PM	70	Hutchinson, KS Airport
12:05 AM	71	4 WSW Halstead, KS
12:16 AM	68	Eisenhower National, Wichita, KS
12:28 AM	74	McConnell Air Force Base
12:30 AM	89	Kansas Aviation Museum, Wichita, KS
12:41 AM	72	Andover, KS

Largest Hail Reports:

Time (CDT)	Size (inches)	Location
11:41 PM	1.75	3 W Nickerson, KS
12:28 PM	1.75	East Wichita, KS
1:14 AM	1.75	Moline, KS
1:30 AM	2.50	7 NNW Hale, KS
1:58 AM	1.75	Cherryvale, KS
2:08 AM	2.75	Altamont, KS

Radar Images

Reflectivity at 11:40pm showing a bowing feature moving into Sedgwick and Harvey counties

Base Velocity at 11:40pm showing the bright band of green, high velocities, moving towards the radar site in Wichita.

Reflectivity at 12:19am showing smaller bowing features along the main bowing segment along I-135.

Base Velocity at 12:19am showing a large area of 60-70 mph pushing south of Wichita and channeled microbursts developing across the northern Sedgwick and southern Harvey counties.

Base Velocity at 12:21am