KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City Police officer says he saw a tornado touch down in Kansas City, but the worst of the storms went south of the immediate metro.
The reported tornado touch-down happened near Interstate 470. A visible funnel cloud was reported near Blue Ridge Boulevard, Raytown Road and View High Drive. Meteorologist Gary Lezak says he is pretty confident a small tornado did touch down, but it only briefly hit the ground and quickly dissipated. No one has reported any damage from the tornado.
Tornado sirens went off in several metro cities as storms pushed through just before 3 p.m.
Officials from the city of Kansas City, Mo. said they sounded the outdoor warning sirens in southern Jackson County at 2:43 p.m. Monday in response to several reports of a brief touchdown of a funnel near I-470 and View High Drive. The reports came from law enforcement and fire protection personnel as well as citizens.
City officials say no damage has been confirmed.
Just after 3 p.m., the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill, Mo. received reports of one-inch hail in Lee's Summit which lasted for about 15 minutes, and penny-size hail in Harrisonville. A viewer in Greenwood reported hail nearly the size of golf balls.
The storm that passed by Lee's Summit also packed with 60 mile-per-hour winds heavy rain. The storms pushed out of the Kansas City area quickly, decreasing in intensity nearly as quickly as they formed.
An NBC Action News viewer sent us a photo of the funnel cloud she witnessed as she drove on I-470 at the time of the storm.
Kansas City Power & Light reported just after the storm pushed through our area near 3:30 p.m., about 5,000 customers were without power. About 4,000 of those without power were on the Kansas side of the metro area. At 3:50 p.m., KCP&L had reduced the number of outages to about 3,000.
A transformer also reportedly blew in the area of 60th Street and Johnson Drive.
Crews in Topeka say there was storm damage south of their city in White City, Osage City and Lyndon, Kansas.
Gary and the rest of the weather team are monitoring the situation and will bring you the latest on the Action Weather Blog and on NBC Action News at 5 and 6 p.m.
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