Tornadoes in Kansas and Oklahoma wreak havoc, with more storms forecast

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Deadly thunderstorms, including several tornadoes, ripped across the Great Plains and Corn Belt on Tuesday – capping an abnormally active week and month for twisters in the central states. A violent tornado in Kansas killed one person and injured three more, while a family of tornadoes – including a deviant vortex that spun backward – danced in the dark in southwestern Oklahoma.

More severe weather was expected in the central states Wednesday, with an enhanced risk of dangerous storms between Central Texas and western Oklahoma, before a gradual pause in activity into the weekend. But a renewed severe-weather threat – perhaps a significant one – is expected Monday.

Tuesday’s deadly twister struck Westmoreland, Kan., carving a path through the town 35 miles west of Topeka shortly before 5 p.m. The tornado was strong enough to pry a manhole cover out of the ground and destroyed 22 homes, according to the Associated Press.

An improbable high-end tornado event took place in southwestern Oklahoma, producing a tornado family that traveled in virtually every direction and, at times, reversed course. A tornado near Hollister, Okla., exhibited one of the strongest rotational signatures ever observed on Doppler radar, but it appears it remained over rural areas.

The National Weather Service received over 200 reports of severe weather Tuesday from Texas to Iowa, including 13 tornadoes and 100 reports of large hail, some the size of baseballs.

Tuesday’s storms concluded the second-busiest April on record for tornadoes, with over 280 twisters reported nationwide. The Weather Service issued over 600 tornado warnings during the month from Colorado to Maryland.

Multiple rotating thunderstorms or supercells formed near and north of Topeka toward the Nebraska border. One produced the significant tornado that hit Westmoreland.

Social media video of the Westmoreland twister exhibits a violent buzz saw, shredding vegetation and lofting massive amounts of debris into the air. Aaron Jayjack, a storm chaser who captured viral video of the twister, wrote on X that it produced “insane suction sounds” as it ripped through the north side of the town. But at other times it was slender and ropelike as it displayed picturesque contortions overhead.

A second supercell just 30 miles north of Westmoreland produced a tornado near Centralia, west of Corning, that lasted approximately 10 minutes. (I chased it, and it appears no structures were hit. I also observed tennis-ball-size hail.)

Multiple tornadoes accompanied a bizarre conglomeration of supercell storms Tuesday evening in far southwestern Oklahoma, just north of the Red River. While the overall environment was not particularly favorable for strong tornadoes on a wide scale, local mechanisms were present that helped intensify spin.

In the case of one tornado that formed east of Hollister, Okla., a computer algorithm placed at 61% the chance that the tornado had winds in the EF4 or EF5 range on the 0-to-5 Enhanced Fujita scale for intensity, meaning it probably had peak winds of at least 166 mph. Because the tornado remained largely over open farmland, Weather Service meteorologists probably won’t find enough damage to know for sure how strong the winds actually were.

The tornado was so powerful that it prevented rain from falling within its circulation, literally suspending droplets and creating a “doughnut hole” on radar that towered to 18,000 feet. That’s virtually unheard of. Moreover, the tornado migrated to the center of the parent thunderstorm – rather than the southwestern side, as is typical – and created a strange signature on radar resembling a miniature hurricane.

The same thunderstorm produced another twister that spun clockwise and traced a loop-de-loop as it drifted southeast of Loveland, Okla. It’s very rare for strong tornadoes to be “anticyclonic,” or clockwise spinning; less than half a percent of all significant tornadoes are anticyclonic.

Meteorologists on X were at a loss for words watching this play out on radar:

-“This is so incredibly rare it’s hard to describe,” wrote Taylor Trogdon, a forecast operations specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

-“Never. Have. I. Ever. Seen. Anything. Like. That.,” wrote Chris Jackson, a meteorologist and storm chaser.

-“This is among the most ridiculous 10-15 minutes of radar presentation I’ve ever seen from a storm,” wrote Alex Spahn, a storm chaser and physics instructor.

-“Certainly one of the most impressive anticyclonic tornadoes in history,” wrote Sam Shamburger, a National Weather Service forecaster.

The episode bore resemblance to June 3, 1980, infamously called the “night of the twisters.” Seven tornadoes struck the city of Grand Island, Neb. Three were anticyclonic.On Wednesday, additional thunderstorms formed in a risk area that spanned from San Angelo, Tex., to Woodward in northwestern Oklahoma. That’s where the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center drew a Level 3 (out of 5) risk. In addition, a Level 2 risk reached east toward San Antonio and Houston and up to Dallas, and spread all the way through Kansas into southern Nebraska near McCook, Kearney and Lincoln.

A greater threat of severe weather will come Monday. It’s too early to know specifics, but all severe-weather hazards – from large hail to tornadoes – appear possible over the southern and central Plains.