A historic tornado outbreak 10 years ago today

 April 14, 2012 will always be a memorable day for some that went through a large tornado outbreak in the Plains. I remember waking up that morning - on a Saturday - with a community clean up day wondering how long I'd be able to help before getting called to work. There was a "high" risk for tornadoes and storms started before noon. It was a well predicted event and many had rearranged their weekend plans to keep an eye on the weather.

• 86 confirmed tornadoes
• 6 fatalities (all in Oklahoma)
• Strongest tornado of the day: EF4 near Marquette, KS

Here was the 8am day 1 storm outlook:

And a 30-45% chance of seeing tornadoes in Kansas and Nebraska:

The radar image before noon had severe thunderstorms already developing across central/western Kansas. The yellow boxes are severe thunderstorm warnings while the red outline indicates the tornado watch. That was just the first watch for Kansas that day.

Just before 6 pm, the radar showed tornado producing storms in central and south central Kansas. The tornado was underway in northeast Rice county, headed into Saline county. Meanwhile, we were also watching the tornado warnings coming up from northern Oklahoma that would eventually get south central Kansas involved.

The strongest tornado that afternoon in Kansas was rated EF4, which went through Rice, southeast Ellsworth counties, and dissipated before reaching Salina. Had the tornado not weakened, it may very well hit Salina. The storm then crossed over Salina, and produced another tornado near Solomon.

This was the tornado captured on the Ellsworth/Saline county line (as it passed east of Kanopolis Lake) - courtesy Will Campbell

Some of the EF4 damage just south of Kanopolis Lake

Later that evening, a tornado came up through Sumner county and into Sedgwick county, hitting Oaklawn and crossing Spirit Aerosystems - producing EF3 damage in Oaklawn.

Here is the Storm Prediction Center summary of the reports that day.