Fire Weather Concerns for a Large Part of the Central U.S.; Severe Weather in the Central Plains

Dry and windy conditions will bring widespread fire weather concerns to the northern/central Plains and portions of the Southwest into the southern Plains. Severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging wind gusts are possible over the central Plains today into this weekend. Rain and high elevation snow is expected over parts of the Cascades and Northern Intermountain Region through Saturday. 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.