Following a five day break from active weather, the early to mid-evening hours on this Sunday featured a few, fairly isolated severe thunderstorms across portions of North Central Kansas, mainly affecting Mitchell, Osborne and Jewell Counties. The main impact from these storms was large hail from 1 to 2 inches in diameter, with the largest stones reported by storm chasers in the Tipton and Cawker City areas. While damaging wind reports were limited, several awnings were blown off campers at Glen Elder State Park. The initial and primary strong to severe storm development took place across southern and eastern Osborne County shortly after 6 PM CDT and drifted northeast, while other, less organized storms eventually developed across other portions of the six-county area, with nearly all activity weakening or moving north out of the state by 9 PM CDT.
In the low levels, severe storm development was focused near, and just south of a rather well-defined, northward-lifting warm front, and also just northeast of a dryline bulging into central Kansas from the west. Aloft, broad southwesterly flow dominated the Central Plains, to the east of a powerful, closed mid-level low pressure system centered over the Intermountain West. At mid-afternoon, the surface warm front stretched from west-east along a line from far northwest Kansas to southeast Nebraska, separating an expansive area of low clouds to the north across Nebraska, from considerable sunshine and destabilization to the south in Kansas. By late afternoon, the mesoscale environment across eastern portions of North Central Kansas was quite supportive of supercell development, given mixed-layer CAPE values of at least 3000-4000 J/kg, along with at least 40 knots of deep-layer vertical wind shear. The combination of somewhat high cloud bases along with various storm-scale mergers likely mitigated what could have been a tornadic threat.

Hail in JEWELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:50:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:50:00 (CST-6)
Location: IONIA
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:25:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:25:00 (CST-6)
Location: DOWNS
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 200.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:35:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:35:00 (CST-6)
Location: CAWKER CITY
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 200.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Hail in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:50:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:50:00 (CST-6)
Location: CAWKER CITY
Magnitude: 2.00 
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 200.00K
Reported by: Storm Chaser

Hail in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:30:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:30:00 (CST-6)
Location: DOWNS
Magnitude: 2.00 
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 200.00K
Reported by: Storm Chaser

Hail in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 17:40:00 to 29-MAY-11 17:40:00 (CST-6)
Location: DOWNS
Magnitude: 0.75 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 (CST-6)
Location: CAWKER CITY
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Thunderstorm Wind in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 (CST-6)
Location: GLEN ELDER RES
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 15.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Wind gusts estimated at 60 mph, damaging several camper awnings at Glen Elder State Park.

Hail in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:23:00 (CST-6)
Location: DOWNS
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 200.00K
Reported by: Law Enforcement

Hail in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 29-MAY-11 18:30:00 to 29-MAY-11 18:30:00 (CST-6)
Location: CAWKER CITY
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter