Tornado touches down West of KC!

As I was coming back into the Kansas City area, I drove thru a huge thunderstorm.  It was complete with dime size hail and rain at about 5 inches per hour.  Stopped the traffic on I 35 almost cold in its tracks.

Oh boy I wonder what is South of here?  So as I got closer, I changed the ham radio to the 146.82 repeater.  And yes there was a storm net going on and spotters were activated.  They use local repeaters in each area of town and then one guy reports back to Sky Warn net control on the area wide .82.  This keeps the traffic down on this main large repeater that covers the entire area.

It has several receivers that are connected to the transmitter site downtown.  So no matter where you are in town, a local receiver connects you back to the transmitter with a phone line.

But the news was that tornados were touching down in the Eudora, Linnwood area.  This is between Lawrence and Lenexa.  And not nearly far enough away to give us comfort.

The chopper video of the damage after the fact shows several barns and a house or two that were nothing but rubble. 

There was a race going at the KC Speedway at the time (truck series) and the tornado was headed right for the track. They called that instantly, and folks were sheltered under the stands.  The storm raised back into the clouds and did not cause damage at the speedway.  But it did pass right over the track.

I had planned upon writing about the many friends I had seen in Des Moines,  and the day’s fun, but with the repeaters going full tilt, somehow that seems a little small.

I’m really killed after being up  since 4 AM and driving 400 miles, so perhaps I’ll get back at it tomorrow.

Retired Rod

PS: As the hams reported the touchdown, within moments, the weather service announced the Tornado Warning.  They can see the conditions are right on the radar, but it requires eyes on the ground to know what is really happening.  The radio operators are a major source of information for the weather bureau.