The National Weather Service says there was a small tornado in east Morris and northwest Lyon counties on Monday evening.
The National Weather Service says an EF-1 QLCS, or quasi-linear convective system, tornado touched down 4 miles east of Council Grove in far east Morris County just before 7:45 pm. The damage path, 50 yards at its widest, ended 5 miles north of Allen, a distance of 15 miles.
Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Flanagan was among the staffers on duty for Monday night. He tells KVOE News there were several indicators of tornadic activity.
The Weather Service says the strong rotation was in the area of isolated tree and power pole damage that was noted after sunrise Tuesday. The path also included “uplift on roof material” for a 2-story house.
Flanagan says a line segment had enough low-level rotation to set off three tornado warnings in rapid succession along the US Highway 56 corridor, progressing from far east Morris County to northwest Osage County. The tornado apparently developed on the leading edge of a line of storms after supercells produced isolated tornado activity in north-central Kansas and then merged as they pushed to the east.
There does not currently appear to be any evidence of other tornadic activity for area counties from Monday night.
Also connected to the storm activity Monday night was a wide general swath of power outages, generally along and north of Interstate 35 and US Highway 50. Evergy has not updated its repair process after having as many as 2,800 customers offline for places like Emporia, all north Lyon county communities, Council Grove, Lyndon and Melvern, but Flint Hills Rural Electric Cooperative Member Services Manager Travis Griffin tells KVOE News the utility had two transmission poles and two distribution poles downed, including the general area where the tornado was on the ground in east Morris and far northwest Lyon counties. Nearly 1,000 Flint Hills customers lost power Monday night.
