A particularly dangerous situation tornado warning was issued Sunday evening for Montgomery County, Kansas, including Sycamore and Cherryvale, as a storm produced a large and dangerous tornado in Sycamore and kept tracking east across southern Kansas.
The National Weather Service said people in the warned area were in a life-threatening situation, warning that flying debris could be deadly without shelter, mobile homes would be destroyed, and considerable damage to homes, businesses and vehicles was likely, with complete destruction possible.
Emergency managers reported damage in Sycamore, a small Montgomery County town of about 70 people, and fire and EMS were on their way. Charles Peek posted video on social media showing the tornado trying to spin up there, while across the Plains the evening storm round had already produced 41 hail reports, 16 damaging wind reports and two tornado reports.
The severe weather threat was part of a multi-day siege of deadly storms across the Plains, with the system still expected to continue through the overnight hours, especially over the Central Plains. The same storm that hit Sycamore was moving farther east across southern Kansas toward Missouri, where a tornado watch was issued until 2 a.m. local time.
That is what made the pds tornado warning so rare and so stark: it was not a routine alert, but a warning that conditions were already dangerous enough for immediate shelter, and the storm was still moving.
