A right-moving supercell produced tennis ball size hail and funnel clouds on this Memorial Day (Monday) evening. Around 6 PM CST, a lone thunderstorm began forming along the Trego-Ness county line. This storm rapidly matured and became a supercell as it moved north-northeast. It began moving into southern Rooks county around 645 PM CST. At that time, the supercell was in the progress of splitting. A few minutes later, the left-mover produced hail up to the size of tennis balls at Zurich. Three funnel clouds were reported with the right-mover, one southwest of Plainville, and two more over western and central Osborne county. This storm rapidly weakened once it approached the town of Osborne. Meanwhile, the left-mover continued to move almost due north, but no other severe weather was reported. Other storms developed between these two supercells, these storms were generally not severe, but downburst winds were strong enough to overturn an irrigation pivot in northeast Jewell county around 10 PM CST.
A quasi-stationary front extended from the Mid-Atlantic across the Midwest to low pressure over Iowa. The front then extended southwest across southern Nebraska into northwest Kansas to another low over Colorado. In the upper-levels, a longwave trough was over the western U.S., with a fairly flat ridge over the east. A upper low moved from Nevada into Utah through the day with southwest flow over the Central Plains. Just before the storms moved into north central Kansas, temperatures were in the 80s, with dewpoints in the middle to upper 60s. Despite low mid-level lapse rates, MLCAPE was between 2000 and 3000 J/kg. Deep layer shear was very strong (50-60 kt), with 0-3 km SRH 250-300 m2/s2. 0-1 km SRH was less impressive, between 100 and 150 m2/s2.
Sunday night, 3 to 5 inches of rain fell across northwestern Phillips County. This lead to minor flooding on Deer Creek on this date, which closed some gravel roads. Prairie Dog Creek also rose into minor flood stage, which is rare. The last time Prairie Dog Creek flooded at the Woodruff gauge was September of 1977. For this event, Prairie Dog Creek crested at 22.1 ft (flood stage is 21 ft) and that was the 6th highest crest on record.