Smithville Lake tornado confirmed. Here are details on strength, path of KC area twister
A small tornado struck Smithville Lake as powerful thunderstorms moved across Kansas City’s Northland Tuesday, the National Weather Service confirmed.
The EF1 tornado had maximum winds of 95 mph and touched down about 10:13 a.m., the weather service said on X, formerly known as Twitter, Tuesday evening.
According to the weather service, the tornado touched down in the Crows Creek Campground and continued along a 2.3-mile path across the Camp Branch Campground and Collins Road before lifting near County Road W.
The tornado was on the ground for about five minutes and had a maximum width of 50 years.
No one was injured in the tornado; however, it wrecked a temporary home a family stayed in near the lake. Kristel McGinnis created a GoFundMe on Tuesday after the winds toppled the camper they were staying in, ruining most of their belongings.
Funds from the GoFundMe will help the family continue to rebuild and find a new home.
The Clay County Sheriff’s office said the family, which included a mom, dad and an 11-year-old boy as well as a cat and dog, made it to safety in one of the campground’s bathrooms, which serve as storm shelters.
Other damage at the lake included the roof being blown off the Kansas City Trapshooters Association building at 6420 NE 176th Street, power lines down near Mt. Olivet Road and Northeast 144th Street and trees down in the 17900 block of Collins Road, said Sarah Boyd, a spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.
The storms spawned other tornadoes. In Kansas, two tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down Tuesday morning south of Topeka.
The weather service said it would send a team to Nodaway County, Missouri, on Wednesday to investigate damage and determine whether a tornado had touched down.
