Thunderstorm Wind in Hickory County, Missouri

A National Weather Service storm survey determined multiple swaths of straight line winds occurred across Hickory County. One swath that started as a downburst at the ball fields on the southwest side of Wheaton continued east damaging outbuildings and homes through Wheaton. Winds increased to 90 mph as the storm approached the Lucas Oil race track, damaging grandstands, overturning over 20 recreational vehicles, and snapping dozens of trees.

Multiple rounds of storms producing heavy rainfall, severe winds, hail and tornadoes moved across the Missouri Ozarks from May 20th and into the early morning hours of May 24th as upper level disturbances interacted with a slow moving but powerful storm system over the central Plains. Tornadoes occurred with each round, with the strongest and most numerous tornadoes occurring during the late afternoon and evening of the 22nd. On the anniversary of the Joplin Tornado off 2011, another tornado, rated EF-3 struck the north side of Joplin. This storm system eventually produced subsequent tornadoes in Golden City, Eldon and Jefferson City. Unfortunately there were three fatalities as a result of the tornado in Golden City. The cumulative rainfall caused areas of flash flooding with some flooding lingering across the region. Some locations in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri reported in excess of 8 inches of rainfall over the 72 hour period. .