Post updated at 4:37 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30:
Lawrence and Douglas County could see severe thunderstorms starting Wednesday afternoon, with heavy winds possible.
The National Weather Service in Topeka also issued a tornado watch for much of eastern Kansas and parts of western Missouri around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, in effect until 10 p.m.
A tornado “watch” means conditions are right for a tornado to be possible. A tornado “warning” means a tornado is imminent.
A hazardous weather outlook notice from the NWS warns that storms were possible mainly after 4 p.m. Wednesday and continuing through the evening until around 1 a.m. Thursday.
“Large hail, damaging wind, and a few tornadoes are all possible,” according to NWS.
The chance of precipitation in Lawrence ranges from 60% Wednesday afternoon up to 90% Wednesday night, according to the forecast as of 12:30 p.m. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph, and the forecast shows an overnight low of 46°.
Thursday is expected to be sunny with a high near 60° and a low of 37° overnight into Friday morning. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph Thursday, but the weather should be fairly friendly to trick-or-treaters.
Showers and storms could return Friday night, through the weekend and into next week, according to the forecast.
Lawrence has received less than one-tenth of an inch of precipitation for the month through Tuesday — well below the norm of 2.76 inches, according to NWS almanac data. High temperatures this month have also been about 9° warmer than usual.
See links below to find the most up-to-date weather info from NWS.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Severe weather resources
National Weather Service local office (Topeka):
• Find the latest weather forecast info and severe weather advisories for the Lawrence area at this link.
• In the event of rapidly changing severe weather, such as tornadoes, the NWS posts frequent updates on Twitter, @NWSTopeka. You do not need a Twitter account to see tweets from NWS.
• NWS is also on Facebook, facebook.com/NWSTopeka.
• Call 785-234-2592 to hear the forecast.
Douglas County Emergency Management:
• Follow @DgCoEM on Twitter or Douglas County, KS- Emergency Management on Facebook, facebook.com/dgcoem.
• Sign up to receive emergency alerts at dgcoks.org/emalerts.
• Find lots of tips on severe weather and other emergency preparedness on DgCoEM’s website at douglascountyks.org/emergency-management.
• Report storm damage (for non-emergencies only, and after storm danger has passed) by calling the nonemergency dispatch line at 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
Evergy outages:
• Check the status of power outages on the Evergy outage map, outagemap.evergy.com.
• Report a power outage at evergy.com/report-outage, or call 800-544-4857.
• For down powerlines, call 911.
City of Lawrence snow info:
• The city has snow information and a map at lawrenceks.org/snow that shows information about road conditions and snow plow locations. The city typically begins snow and ice control for residential roadways when 2 or more inches of snowfall or icing occurs.
Air quality:
• Check the current air quality index in Lawrence and elsewhere through AirNow, airnow.gov.
This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.
If you have news tips, questions, comments, concerns, compliments or corrections for our team, please reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. Email us at Hello@LawrenceKSTimes.com (don’t forget the KS!), or find more contact info and a quick contact form at LawrenceKSTimes.com/contact.
Follow us so you won’t miss the local news that matters most to you:
Latest Lawrence news:
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
