Kansas City Tornado Warnings

Mike Peregrine

EF5
Joined
Dec 8, 2003
Messages
2,208
Location
Kansas City, Missouri
I'm working in Corporate Woods (OP, KS) again these days ... this morning's tor-warnings sure caught everyone off guard. I'm guessing these were low topped, very close to the low. I swear my ears popped when the rotation came straight up Antioch and overhead!

Everyone is so unnerved after Joplin and people are scared silly around here. I guess it's good from the standpoint that complacency is gone for the time being. Everyone actually went into the stairwells in my building and waited it out.

Pretty dramatic start to the day ...
 
Can anyone give some insight on why these popped up out of the blue like this? I didn't think the parameters were good for tornadoes in this area today. They made us go to the bottom level of a parking garage here downtown for about an hour. Saw a wall cloud pass just north of downtown.
 
Benjamin Smith said:
Can anyone give some insight on why these popped up out of the blue like this? I didn't think the parameters were good for tornadoes in this area today. They made us go to the bottom level of a parking garage here downtown for about an hour. Saw a wall cloud pass just north of downtown.
Click to expand...

This series looks like a "cold core" setup, in close proximity to the upper level low. The storms are relatively low-topped, and the spin-ups are quick to form. Doesn't necessarily take a great deal of moisture or instability under a cold core in the upper levels to result in tornadoes.
 
Yeah, these were definitely low-topped cold core storms. Oh Jon Davies is going to have something interesting to say about this, I'm betting ... hopefully they were out chasing today.
 
I was south of Sedalia when the storm went through. I watched a large wedge tornado go through the south side of town. Due to a downed power line on the road, we were unable to see any damage.
 
I got out of the office and followed the storm that tracked straight through the KC Metro. I picked it up in midtown right around UMKC's campus. The main area of rotation passed overhead and I continued to follow the storm north and east until it was north of the I435 loop. I saw the circulation tighten up multiple times and the storm produced several funnel clouds but I could never see well enough to see if any of the funnels had debris clouds on the ground so I can't confirm any touchdowns. The entire time the storm seemed to be struggling against outflow from storms further to the south and east.

It was an unexpected chase for the day but I guess I'll take it. I did not see any sign of damage as I tracked this storm so we can be thankful for that. I hear Sedalia and possibly Lone Jack got hit pretty hard though.
 
No link, but KMBC 9 in Kansas City has their news chopper over Sedalia and they are showing significant damage to homes and businesses on the south side of town, many completely destroyed it appears.
 
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