I left work at 4:00 pm, initially targeting the area between Topeka and Emporia. I thought I would have some time to decide where would be the best spot, but as I (slowly) made my way through I-35 traffic, I realized that storms were already building just to the west of the metro. I picked a cell that was building over Ottawa. It ended up being two cells that kept competing with each other and interfering with rotation. So I sat in quarter size hail in Ottawa, as the original storm in Douglas/Wyandotte county became tornado-warned (and looked incredible on radar). Another storm east of St. Joe also had a reported tornado at this time. I followed the storm through hills and trees up into Olathe, where I gave up because of city traffic and darkness. My storm finally did produce a tornado near Grandview/Belton. But this (as you know) is not the big story ... we'll get to that in a second. Here are just a couple pics from my storm:
So now let's talk about the big story. At 1:45 a.m. I (as with many of you) was awoken from a deep sleep by a loud roar and my house shaking. It ended up being a tremendous bow echo (a line of storms bowing out that produce harsh straight line winds). The wind was hurricane force, and the apex of the bow moved over downtown KC. It actually stretched all the way from St. Joe down to Butler. But the city took the worst hit from this amazing storm. As you can see from the radar grab I took below, there was rotation embedded along the line as it moved over Gladstone (the little red twirling arrows). These were later confirmed by the NWS as tornadoes embedded along the gustfront. Gladstone took the worst damage from this one, with parts of town closed. I was too tired to go back out, so you'll have to settle for my radar picture. :)
Here is the EAX NWS assessment on last night's event.
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