A particularly dangerous situation tornado warning was issued Sunday for Montgomery County, Kansas, including the towns of Sycamore and Cherryvale, as a large and dangerous tornado moved through the southeastern part of the state and continued east toward Missouri. The National Weather Service warned people in the path that they were in a life-threatening situation and told them flying debris could be deadly without shelter.
The warning carried some of the agency’s starkest language. It said mobile homes would be destroyed and that considerable damage to homes, businesses and vehicles was likely, with complete destruction possible. At the same time, emergency managers reported damage in Sycamore, a town of about 70 people in Montgomery County, and fire and EMS were on their way there.
The storm that produced the tornado in Sycamore had no observed tornado on the ground at the time of the report, but it was still tracking east across southern Kansas and was expected to eventually head into Missouri. A tornado watch was also issued for southern Missouri until 2 a.m. local time, keeping a broad stretch of the region under threat through the night.
That threat arrived after another rough round of severe weather across the Plains, where the evening count had already reached 41 hail reports, 16 damaging wind reports and two tornado reports. Particularly Dangerous Situation tornado warnings are rare, and when forecasters use them it is because the danger is judged to be especially high. Related coverage on the warning and the Kansas towns it covered is available in Pds Tornado Warning Covers Kansas Towns as Dangerous Storms Continue East.
For Sycamore, the question was not whether the storm was serious. It already was. The point of the warning was to get people under cover before the next turn in the storm’s path made the damage worse.