Thunderstorm Wind in Smith County, Kansas

Wind gusts of 79 MPH and 68 MPH were measured by the Smith Center Airport AWOS. Law enforcement reported tree damage across town as well as damage to a local store sign.

Line of thunderstorms brings damaging straight line wind gusts to most of north central Kansas during the late evening of May 1st into the very early morning hours of May 2nd. Thunderstorms initially developed during the early evening hours of May 1st in northeast Colorado, along and north of a warm front. This activity grew upscale into a forward propagating mesoscale convective system (MCS) over the next couple of hours, thanks in large part to an increasing low level jet (LLJ). The LLJ was effective at transporting moderate instability (MUCAPE around 2000 J/kg) atop the warm front, where veering winds with height also led to strong effective wind shear. The result was a line of thunderstorms that moved WSW to ENE across north central Kansas and produced a wide swath of damaging straight line wind gusts of 60 to 75 MPH, mainly between 11PM and 1AM. There were also localized significant severe wind gusts of 83 MPH and 79 MPH in Rooks County and Smith County, respectively. Impacts were fairly typical of damaging wind events with several reports of downed tree limbs and sporadic power outages. Additional thunderstorms continued for a few more hours overnight, but this activity remained sub-severe.