Thunderstorm Wind — Butler, Kansas

2009-05-08 · near Benton, Butler, Kansas

Event narrative

A large swatch of damaging winds moved across the area from Benton to Rosalia including the city of El Dorado with winds measured at 80 mph at the Jefferson elementary school in El Dorado. Numerous large trees were knocked down in Benton, with a mobile home trailer rolled over east of town. The Damaging winds destroyed the historic stone silo bearing the name of the town of Towanda. The damaging winds estimated at 70 to 80 mph moved into El Dorado damaging roofs to numerous businesses in downtown and knocking down numerous large trees. Two or three schools in El Dorado had their roofs partially peeled off. The refinery in El Dorado had some large storage tanks dented. The damaging winds continued to move east downing almost every one of the large transmission lines along US 54 highway from El Dorado to Rosalia.

Wider weather episode

A complex of thunderstorms moved southeast out of Northwest Kansas into Central and South Central Kansas during the early morning hours of May 8th, 2009. This complex of thunmderstorms would intensify over South Central Kansas during the morning and become a prolific damaging wind producer. This swath of damaging winds, (measured at 80 to 100 mph) cut a path of destruction from just north of Wichita, Kansas to Parsons, Kansas. This storm system would continue on into Southern Missouri and eventually Southern Illinois producing widespread damage.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.8171, -97.1126)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 172553. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.