During a month with several rounds of severe weather in this six-county portion of North Central Kansas, what transpired on this Saturday evening into the very early morning of Sunday the 15th was likely one of the most significant severe weather events of the entire 2014 convective season, especially in terms of widespread wind damage that raked from west-to-east across the area in the form of an intense forward-propagating squall line. A few hours prior to these severe winds entering the local area, an isolated supercell storm cluster drifted slowly northeast across parts of Rooks, Phillips and Smith counties before departing into Nebraska, producing one highly-visible, short-track landspout tornado and a few reports of quarter to golf ball size hail. The EF1-rated tornado, which touched down around 530 pm CDT near Webster State Park shortly after storms first initiated, damaged power poles and fencing along its brief path. In terms of hail, the largest reported golf ball size stones fell in the Glade area shortly after the dissipation of the Rooks County tornado. However, in terms of widespread damage, the aforementioned severe squall line that rolled across the six-county area later in the evening was truly the main event. Based on known wind and damage reports (which likely only represented a fraction of the total, individual instances of storm damage across the area), this north-to-south oriented squall line produced a swath of 60-90 MPH gusts through nearly every square mile of North Central Kansas. In addition to several estimated severe wind speeds, a few of the most intense measured gusts included 86 MPH at the Phillipsburg airport and 77 MPH at a home weather station near Webber. Needless to say, a significant amount of wind damage occurred with this squall line as it uprooted or mangled countless trees and likely also damaged several structures. Based on a limited number of damage reports that were received, one of the more newsworthy incidents involved several campers blown over at Webster State Park, along with a roof blown off a cabin. Due to the progressive nature of these storms, rainfall totals across most of North Central Kansas averaged less than 1.
Breaking down event timing, the initial supercell cluster that produced the landspout tornado in northern Rooks County flared up between 5-6 pm CDT near the leading edge of the invading cold front. As this storm cluster slowly drifted northeast through Smith County, it evolved into a more compact-but-organized discrete supercell that exited northward into Nebraska around 830 pm CDT. This storm's departure ushered in a nearly two-hour lull in local thunderstorm activity, before the leading edges of the incoming, intense squall line raced out of northwest Kansas into Phillips and Rooks counties between 10-11 pm CDT. For the next few hours, this fierce, bowing line raced across the remainder of the six-county area before gradually departing the eastern edges of Jewell and Mitchell counties between 12-1 am CDT, leaving behind only a trailing area of stratiform rain that lingered for a few more hours.
On the synoptic scale, this was a fairly classic June setup for significant severe, as a progressive mid level shortwave trough kicked out of the Rockies and into the Central Plains, rotating around the southeast periphery of a parent closed low anchored over the Montana/Saskatchewan border area. As this occurred, strengthening and increasingly-diffluent mid-upper southwesterly flow overspread the local area. At the surface, a slow-moving cold front edged southeastward into North Central Kansas during the evening, embedded within an elongated 992-996 millibar low pressure center stretched from western Kansas into eastern Nebraska. During the late-afternoon to mid-evening time frame, temperatures gradually decreased from highs in the low-mid 90s F while dewpoints generally averaged in the mid-60s F. Mesoscale severe weather parameters during the early-mid evening featured 2000-3000 J/kg mixed layer CAPE in the presence of 40-60 knots of 0-6 kilometer deep layer vertical wind shear. As the evening wore on, low level shear intensified as the nose of a 50-60 knot low level jet focused into the area. This severe weather outbreak was well-anticipated a few days in advance at both the local WFO level as well as by the Storm Prediction Center, which already placed much of North Central Kansas in a Moderate Risk on the Day 2 outlooks 24-48 hours in advance and maintained/refined the Moderate Risk area into the Day 1 period.

Hail in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 17:10:00 to 14-JUN-14 17:10:00 (CST-6)
Location: PHILLIPSBURG
Magnitude: 0.75 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 17:33:00 to 14-JUN-14 17:33:00 (CST-6)
Location: KIRWIN
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Public

Hail in SMITH, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 17:49:00 to 14-JUN-14 17:49:00 (CST-6)
Location: KENSINGTON
Magnitude: 0.75 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: 911 Call Center

Hail in SMITH, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 17:58:00 to 14-JUN-14 17:58:00 (CST-6)
Location: ATHOL
Magnitude: 1.00 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Hail in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:30:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:30:00 (CST-6)
Location: LONG IS
Magnitude: 0.88 
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: 911 Call Center

Thunderstorm Wind in MITCHELL, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 22:48:00 to 14-JUN-14 22:48:00 (CST-6)
Location: BELOIT ARPT
Magnitude: 51.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: AWOS

Thunderstorm Wind in SMITH, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 22:44:00 to 14-JUN-14 22:44:00 (CST-6)
Location: SMITH CENTER ARPT
Magnitude: 62.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: AWOS

This gust was on the trailing edge of the primarily squall line that had moved east.

Thunderstorm Wind in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:27:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:27:00 (CST-6)
Location: LOGAN
Magnitude: 57.00 MG
Property damage: 0.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Mesonet

Thunderstorm Wind in ROOKS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:56:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:56:00 (CST-6)
Location: PLAINVILLE
Magnitude: 52.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: Storm Chaser

Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH.

Thunderstorm Wind in SMITH, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 22:05:00 to 14-JUN-14 22:25:00 (CST-6)
Location: KENSINGTON
Magnitude: 70.00 EG
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: County Official

A line of thunderstorms producing strong winds moved through Smith County, with gusts estimated near 80 MPH in Kensington.  A wind gust of 68 MPH was measured at the Smith Center Airport AWOS at 11:05 p.m. CDT and a gust of 63 MPH was measured by a Kansas Department of Transportation mesonet site 2 miles south of Lebanon at 11:25 p.m. CDT.

Tornado in ROOKS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 16:27:00 to 14-JUN-14 16:34:00 (CST-6)
Location: WEBSTER
Tornado F-scale: EF1
Property damage: 10.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: NWS Storm Survey

This tornado touched down approximately 5 miles northwest of Webster State Park. Maximum wind speeds were estimated to be 110 MPH, with broken power poles and damaged fencing reported.

Hail in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 17:00:00 to 14-JUN-14 17:07:00 (CST-6)
Location: GLADE
Magnitude: 1.75 
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Public

Thunderstorm Wind in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:20:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:30:00 (CST-6)
Location: LONG IS
Magnitude: 70.00 EG
Property damage: 25.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

A line of thunderstorms with wind gusts estimated between 70 and 80 MPH moved through Phillips County.

Thunderstorm Wind in PHILLIPS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:30:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:45:00 (CST-6)
Location: PHILLIPSBURG
Magnitude: 75.00 MG
Property damage: 125.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: AWOS

A line of thunderstorms with damaging wind gusts generally in the 60 to 80 MPH range, but including an 86 MPH gust measured by the Phillipsburg Airport AWOS at 10:37 p.m. CDT, moved across Phillips County. A sustained wind speed of 67 MPH was also recorded by the AWOS. This wind was accompanied by large hail of unknown size, which resulted in windows being broken out of a vehicle in Phillipsburg.  Numerous trees were damaged, with some being uprooted, and large limbs were downed.

Thunderstorm Wind in ROOKS, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 21:35:00 to 14-JUN-14 21:50:00 (CST-6)
Location: WEBSTER
Magnitude: 56.00 MG
Property damage: 50.00K
Crop damage: 0.00K
Reported by: AWOS

A line of thunderstorms producing damaging wind speeds moved through Rooks County, with a wind gust of 64 MPH measured by the AWOS at Rooks County Regional Airport. At Webster State Park, a number of campers were blown over and one cabin suffered roof damage.

Thunderstorm Wind in JEWELL, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 22:25:00 to 14-JUN-14 22:40:00 (CST-6)
Location: BURR OAK
Magnitude: 67.00 MG
Property damage: 75.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Public

A line of thunderstorms producing damaging winds moved through Jewell County. The cooperative observer in Burr Oak estimated wind gusts near 70 MPH and a home weather station near Webber measured a 77 MPH wind gust at 1146 pm CDT.  An outbuilding was destroyed a few miles south of the Kansas state line on Highway 128.

Thunderstorm Wind in OSBORNE, KANSAS
From 14-JUN-14 22:35:00 to 14-JUN-14 22:40:00 (CST-6)
Location: OSBORNE
Magnitude: 61.00 EG
Property damage: 40.00K
Crop damage: 250.00K
Reported by: Trained Spotter

Wind gusts were estimated to be near 70 MPH in Osborne, while a mesonet site 1 mile north of town measured a gust of 59 MPH.  Several large tree limbs were downed, some between 12 and 18 inches in diameter, and at least one tree was uprooted. One limb landed on a wood post and lattice fence and partially crushed it.