High wind, baseball-sized hail, tornadoes possible for Wichita area. Here’s when
Storms expected Monday across south-central Kansas include the risk of baseball-sized hail, 70-mph winds, heavy rain and possible tornadoes, forecasters say.
The National Weather Service says “scattered to numerous severe thunderstorms” are likely in the Wichita area starting Monday afternoon and continuing into the evening.
Wichita, Hutchinson, Emporia and Salina are in a moderate risk area, meaning widespread severe storms that may be long-lived and intense are likely, according to the NWS forecast.
“The storms will quickly become severe and be capable of producing up to baseball sized hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes which may become strong,” the NWS said in a weather alert Monday.
“As the storms develop, they are anticipated to merge into a line, with the primary threats eventually shifting to damaging winds and heavy rainfall later in the period.”
Storms are expected to start over central Kansas, including Wichita, between 2 and 3 p.m. They’ll spread into eastern and southeastern Kansas by evening, impacting areas east of the Kansas Turnpike after 10 p.m., the weather service says.
The storms should be over by early Tuesday morning.
The weather service says confidence is high about the timing and location of the storms but low to medium about their longevity, which “may potentially reduce severity levels.”
If storms cluster quickly after they develop, the likelihood of heavy rains and damaging winds will increase and the threat of large hail and tornadoes will decrease, the NWS says.
