Hail pours down as severe storms fire up across Kansas

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Kansas on the afternoon of Oct. 21 as fall thunderstorms swept across the region, dumping intense hail.

Transcript

00:00The threat for severe weather continues here for a portion of the Plains throughout this afternoon, this evening, and into tonight.

00:05And one man who's often on this is meteorologist Tony Laubach.

00:10He doesn't miss when it comes to severe weather, and I know that he's been on the prowl there.

00:14We haven't had a whole lot of severe weather in the Plains.

00:16He's been on tropical patrol lately, but, Damian, today, a little different.

00:19He's returned to Kansas.

00:21That's right, and as we take a closer look at the radar, you can see why,

00:24because we're starting to see a couple of these thunderstorms really getting going.

00:28We've had two storms that have persistently produced severe thunderstorm warnings.

00:32So, right now, we're joined by AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach.

00:36He joins us right now from Phillips County up in Kansas.

00:38So, Tony, so far, give me a report on what you're seeing out there.

00:44Well, things have gotten busy since the last time we spoke, Damian.

00:47We were talking earlier, about an hour and a half ago, how these storms were really just starting to get going.

00:52Well, that has happened.

00:53The storms that are got going have got going, and then some behind me over my shoulder here.

00:58This is the northern end of a line of storms in north central Kansas

01:02that I've been tracking for the better part of the last hour.

01:05What has that produced?

01:07Well, just a little bit of ice, and we'll show you some of that.

01:09This in Phillipsburg, this is about 15 or so minutes off to my west where I'm standing currently right now.

01:15This was some pretty decent amounts of hail.

01:17Most of it was pretty small.

01:19We did get hail, excuse me, up to one inch in diameter,

01:22but it was coming down in a frenzy.

01:24A lot of hail was covering the ground, made for some hazardous travel.

01:28A few folks were kind of fishtailing a little bit on the road

01:31as some of that hail was starting to cover the roadways there.

01:33In town, it was mainly the western side of town.

01:36Once you got on the east side of town, it was all rain,

01:38so most of the heavier core stayed off to the west of this.

01:42Again, about one inch hail is what we got out of that.

01:45So, again, technically, what makes a severe thunderstorm severe,

01:48one of those criteria, is one-inch hail,

01:50and that's exactly what we saw there in the town of Phillipsburg.

01:54We're going to show you the radar here because we want to show you

01:56that we've got kind of a cluster and a line of storms that are forming in this area.

02:00This is one of several bands that we're seeing develop ahead of this low-pressure system

02:04that's slowly working its way along the Kansas-Nebraska border.

02:07We do have that threat, maybe for a brief tornado,

02:10but I think really the big issue is going to be the large damaging hail.

02:14We do have a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for this area until 11 o'clock tonight.

02:19We'll bring you back live here because I've switched camera directions.

02:21You were looking off to the north behind me.

02:23Now we're looking back off to the southwest,

02:25and you kind of see there, Damien, that little lowering.

02:27That's kind of a developing wall cloud.

02:29Again, we're seeing kind of clusters in this.

02:31The issue, I think, with this in terms of the tornadic threat at the moment where I'm standing,

02:35temperatures are right around 50 degrees.

02:38It is very, very cold.

02:39When you get a lot of that precipitation, it pulls that cold air down to the surface

02:44and kind of blows it out here.

02:45So despite that wall cloud there, I think the tornado chances are going to be pretty low,

02:49but unfortunately, this is going to be a repeat for folks in the Phillipsburg area.

02:53We're going to see these storms continue to fill in.

02:55Again, that watch goes until 11 o'clock tonight,

02:57and you see the rain coming down right now around me.

02:59Might start seeing some pea-sized hail here in this vicinity before too long.

03:03We're going to be tracking these storms for the rest of the evening.

03:06All right, Tony, thank you so much.

03:0750-degree air is very heavy, and it's very hard to lift.

03:10So that definitely will possibly choke off some of these storms.

03:13So this is what we're going to be tracking here.

03:15So taking a closer look, one of the things I always like to look at

03:17is you look at the lightning intensity of these storms.

03:20If a storm is maintaining or increasing its lightning production,

03:23that means that it's maintaining as a healthy or a maturing storm.

03:26So that storm that Tony was talking about over Phillipsburg,

03:29it's still definitely producing a lot of lightning.

03:31So this one is possibly going to be the storm

03:33because the one to the west of it and the one to the southeast of it,

03:37that's looking like to me it's showing signs of the overall lightning

03:41starting to subside and depress just a little bit.

03:43So it does look like it's primarily going to be this storm here in Phillipsburg

03:47that is going to be the one that is going to produce the most damage,

03:49especially as far as some large hail.

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