Tornado Alley under multi-day severe weather threat. What does it mean for Kansas City?
Severe weather continues to threaten parts of Tornado Alley but the Kansas City area might be spared from the worst, a meteorologist with AccuWeather said Monday.
“We will see another threat for strong thunderstorms again tomorrow (Tuesday) night,” said Joe Curtis, a meteorologist at AccuWeather. “But Kansas City is going to be on the eastern fringe of the main threat. So the main threat is going to be focused across central Kansas through central Oklahoma again.”
By the time the storms reach the Kansas City area, the main threat to metro will be gusty and possibly damaging winds reaching around 60 mph, he said. Heavy rains with some localized flooding also will be possible.
“I can’t rule out possibly a tornado in the Kansas City area, but that threat is going to be pretty low compared to what it will be to your west,” Curtis said.
The threat comes as areas in Tornado Alley remain on a alert as a series of storms will likely continue to spawn severe weather.
On Sunday, most of the storms were focused in Oklahoma and Texas, which were rattled with hail, high winds heavy rainfall and flooding.
There were 12 reports of tornadoes, most of them in Oklahoma, but two were reported in Newton and Jasper/Barton counties in southwestern Missouri, Curtis said. There were seven reports of hail as well and 36 reports of damaging winds.
On Monday, strong to severe thunderstorms were threatening eastern Missouri and Illinois. Meanwhile, the Kansas City area was not expecting severe weather. Rains were coming to an end Monday afternoon and the area was expected to dry out overnight.
Most of Tuesday was expected to be dry before the next round of storms move in late Tuesday night, Curtis said.
