The tornado drought of 2018 has ended for Kansas and Oklahoma.
More than a dozen tornadoes have been reported across central and northern Kansas on Tuesday, including a large twister featuring multiple vortexes in rural Cloud County south of Concordia.
Oklahoma recorded a tornado north-northeast of Buffalo in Harper County just south of the Kansas line.
Most of the Kansas tornadoes were short-lived, with minimal damage reported. But the large tornado south of Concordia snapped power poles and downed power lines, said Mick McGuire, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wichita.
A home just south of Tescott in Ottawa County was reportedly damaged shortly before 8 p.m., according to the Storm Prediction Center, though no injuries were reported in connection with the large tornado.
The 19 tornado reports as of just after 8 p.m. Tuesday included 14 in Kansas. They were preliminary numbers sent to the SPC, and some could be multiple reports of the same tornado.
Oklahoma has never gone this far into a calendar year without a tornado touching down, and Kansas hadn’t reached May without a tornado since 1980.
More severe weather, including tornadoes, is expected in parts of Kansas both Wednesday and Thursday.
More than 10,000 square miles of far northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri – including St. Joseph, Mo., and Leavenworth and Atchison in Kansas – are already in a moderate risk for severe weather on Thursday. Another 88,000 square miles, including Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Wichita, face an enhanced risk of severe weather.
by Stan Finger (2018, May 1) The Wichita Eagle
