Late April brought an onslaught of severe weather
By Jared Shelton News-Press NOW meteorologist
The first half of April was relatively quiet when it came to severe weather across the mid-Missouri River Valley.
The first two weeks of the month featured no reports of damaging winds or tornadoes, and only one isolated report of sizable hail throughout all of Northwest Missouri. The second half of April has proven to be a different story entirely, as a slew of severe weather events took place across this corner of the state, including a handful of large-scale tornado outbreaks that impacted large swaths of the Central and Southern Plains.
The back-to-back nature of recent spring storms within the heartland, many of which have warranted significant media coverage on the national level, makes it tricky to sort one from the other. In some ways, the recent headlines, compelling footage and relentless severe weather threats of the past two weeks have morphed into a continuous blur. In reality, the chaos can be broken down into three distinct instances.
The first severe weather outbreak to change the course of last month’s fairly quiet pattern took place on Tuesday, April 16. On this day, a potent low-pressure system spawned 26 preliminary reports of tornadoes across parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri. Three tornadoes were confirmed to have struck Northwest Missouri, an EF1 and EF0 in Nodaway County, and another EF1 on Smithville Lake. Numerous damaging wind and spotty large hail reports were also recorded across this corner of the state. Other tornadoes of note from that day include a ling-track EF2 that raked parts of southeast Iowa, a high-end EF1 in Osage County, Kansas, and numerous other low-end tornadoes across the region. Although property was destroyed through the course of this event, no fatalities were reported.
Ten days later, two deep low-pressure systems tracked across the heartland over the course of 48 hours, producing over 200 tornadoes across Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. Eleven low-end tornadoes ranging in strength from EF0 to EF1 were confirmed across the Show Me State, three of which struck Northwest Missouri, including parts of rural Holt, Gentry and Worth counties. Other states were hit much harder, including Nebraska, where a long-track EF3 tornado ransacked parts of metropolitan Omaha, along with a second EF3 twister striking several counties west of the Omaha area. Numerous other low-end tornadoes also struck the Cornhusker state, with surveys still ongoing, according to the National Weather Service office in Omaha. Neighboring Iowa was struck with an estimated 17 tornadoes through the event, six were rated EF2, and one EF3, resulting in one fatality when it demolished parts of Minden. The hardest hit state was Oklahoma, where four tornado-related fatalities took place. The first EF4 tornado of the year raked the town of Marietta, along with a strong EF3 that devastated the town of Sulphur Springs.
The last and most recent severe weather event took place this past Tuesday, April 30. The scattered outbreak resulted in several reports of large hail, but no tornadoes across Northwest Missouri. Northeast Kansas was not so lucky, with the small town of Westmoreland, northwest of Topeka, taking a direct hit from an EF3 tornado, resulting in one fatality and demolishing over 20 structures, accounting for a large chunk of the rural community.
Thus far, the St. Joseph area has been spared of severe weather, a trend that hopefully continues through May and June, widely considered to be the final months of spring storm season.
