With both an early morning and late evening round of thunderstorms, this Thursday featured active weather across various parts of the Central Plains. However, actual severe weather was fairly limited within the six-county coverage area of North Central Kansas, primarily consisting of a somewhat unique, prolonged damaging wind event in the evening. Starting with the morning activity, mainly between 5 and 9 AM CDT, a complex of strong to near-severe storms evolved across the area, resulting in measured wind gusts to around 55 MPH at the Smith Center and Beloit airports, and likely some instances of small hail. This storm complex vacated North Central Kansas by mid-morning, paving the way for a dry and mostly sunny afternoon. However, things got interesting again mainly between 8 and 10 PM CDT, as a rather prolonged damaging wind event unfolded across southern parts of the area. The unique aspect of this event was that the actual heavy precipitation cores associated with severe thunderstorms remained centered at least 20 to 40 miles south of the area, across central Kansas. As these storms weakened and collapsed, a rapid, localized change in surface pressure took place. In response, it is likely that parts of Rooks, Osborne and Mitchell Counties experienced 30 to 60 minutes of prolonged wind gusts of at least 45-60 MPH. The highest known estimated wind gusts of 80 MPH occurred in the community of Osborne, where damage included one to two foot diameter trees down, and a metal outbuilding blown approximately 100 yards.
Aloft, the synoptic-scale instigator for this active weather pattern was an expansive mid-level trough centered across the northern and central Rockies, along with various low-amplitude shortwaves kicking across the Central Plains region ahead of it. The evening round of severe storms that eventually impacted the local area first flared up during the late afternoon along a dryline in southwest Kansas, in an environment with very steep low level lapse rates.