This is the weather equivalent of going from zero to 120 MPH in an instant...
The storms that developed in southeastern Kansas City/southern and western Lee's Summit-MO didn't even show on radar images as late as 2:20 pm.
Notice the zoomed image and no storms at all inside the red circle.
As you can see by the next radar image at 2:43 pm- the storms had developed.
Also around the time this radar image is taken- reports of funnel clouds in the vicinity of Interstate 470 and Raytown Road (red arrow on radar image)- Lake Longview dam began coming over the airwaves.
One KC-MO police officer says a witness saw a "brief touchdown" of a "small tornado" around 2:45 pm and the tornado warning sirens began sounding in south KC-MO- Raytown and Lee's Summit.
We raced to the area as the storms producing the excitement were moving east-southeast around 35 MPH.
We followed behind the storms as far east as U.S. 50 and Missouri-7. I'll upload some of our video to YouTube tomorrow.
We witnessed no damage at all in the I-470-Raytown Road or View High Drive or Lake Longview areas.
For the record- the sirens were sounded but no "official" NWS tornado warning was ever issued.
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