Hail — Osborne, Kansas

2025-05-18 · near Alton, Osborne, Kansas

Wider weather episode

Intense late afternoon and early thunderstorms produced large hail and localized flash flooding across a part of north central Kansas. Beloit was hit the hardest as hail reached 2' in diameter. However, flash flooding thanks to nearly 6' of rain was the problem in parts of Jewell and Smith counties. Smith County Emergency Management verified county roads flooded north of Lebanon along with water impacting U.S. Highway 281 north of Smith Center. The thunderstorms fired between 4 and 6 pm along in Osborne and Mitchell counties and rolled northeast. Despite the movement of the thunderstorms, eastern Smith and western/northern Jewell county experienced a 2-3 hour period of training thunderstorms dumping heavy rain which resulted in the flooding. Most of the runoff from the rain was in the White Rock Creek Basin and eventually flowed into Lovewell Reservoir. The thunderstorms lifted north into Nebraska by mid-evening.

Meteorologically speaking, an upper level low pressure system was located in northeast Wyoming. A shortwave moved across Kansas and into south central Nebraska during the late afternoon and evening hours. Surface low pressure in northwest Kansas had weakened some, but there was still ample south and southeast flow to transport low level moisture north resulting in surface dewpoints in the middle 60s as far north as north central Kansas. Though the deeper low-level moisture and surface instability was located in southern Kansas, strong frontogeneses in the 850-700 mb layer ahead of the short wave sparked a round of storms in the afternoon. Steep mid-level lapses (8C/KM) and strong effective bulk shear of 60 knots was quite favorable for rapid thunderstorm development. Closer to the instability axis near the Kansas/Nebraska border, large hail from elevated thunderstorms was the primary hazard initially, but slightly drier air to the north (sub 60-degree surface dewpoints) supported a localized wind damage risk with a second round of thunderstorms even after dark. Though the risk for tornadoes was greater to the south, strong low-level wind shear and an eventual transition to bowing line segments did become more favorable for brief tornadoes to form for a time.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.4700, -98.9400)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1270113. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.