Powerful June storms slam parts of the heartland this week
The Mid-Missouri River Valley has been stuck in a stormy early June pattern, with rounds of severe weather spawning tornadoes, damaging winds, some sizable hail, and plenty of flooding.
Just this week, three episodes of severe weather impacted parts of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska. The first took aim on the I-70 corridor late Monday evening, June 8. Storms first began firing in western and central Kansas, producing instances of hail up to golf ball size, and a few fleeting tornado touchdowns.
As Monday evening progressed, storms organized into a large and powerful wind machine, battering Salina Kansas with 90 to 100 mph wind gusts. The highest wind report out of Salina was measured at 113 mph. A particularly impressive figure, considering these were non- tornadic straight-line winds.
Storms weakened slightly as they tracked east late Monday night, but still managed to produce 60 to 80 mph wind gusts and flash flooding from Topeka to the west side of Kansas City. Interestingly, this was on the 60-year anniversary of an EF-5 tornado that tracked directly through Topeka, KS in June of 1966.
Round two of potent storms fired up on Wednesday, June 10, this time taking aim on Northern Missouri. Shortly after 3 pm Wednesday afternoon, two separate clusters of supercell thunderstorms formed across Northern Missouri, one over Dekalb and Daviess county, another over Mercer and Putnam counties along the Iowa border.
These storms quickly went on to produce a series of tornado touchdowns, confirmed by trained spotters and emergency managers. According to preliminary reports from the Storm Prediction Center, at least two suspected tornado touchdowns were observed in Daviess county. One just northeast of Weatherby near the Daviess Dekalb county line, and another between Jamesport and Jameson in north central Daviess county. Luckily, damage appears to have been limited to mainly trees and powerlines.
At least two more significant tornadoes were reported and caught on video in Mercer and Putnam counties Wednesday afternoon, resulting in significant damage to a handful of structures between Princeton and Unionville. As of Thursday, June 11, the National Weather Service has yet to finish conducting damage surveys to confirm strength and path of Wednesday’s reported tornado touchdowns.
Aside from tornadoes and wind damage, storms also brought heavy rain to a few unlucky, select locations. Parts of Harrison, Daviess, Gentry, Mercer, and Grundy counties picked up on 4 to 7 inches of rainfall by Thursday morning, leading to numerous road closures and high water. Soils in these areas were already saturated, after an estimated 12 to 20 inches of rain in the past 30 days.
Last but not least, another group of vicious storms slammed southeast Nebraska and southern Iowa early Thursday morning, leaving another wide swath of wind damage in its wake from one town to the next.
All this to say, June is living up to its name as one of the stormiest months of the year for the Midwest and Central Plains. Unfortunately, there may not be rest for the weary this weekend, with another threat for severe weather possible on Saturday.
