The National Weather Service confirmed that Riley County was hit by an EF-2 tornado on Thursday, June 4, with peak winds of 120 mph and a track that lasted from 5:13 p.m. to 5:23 p.m. No injuries or fatalities were reported.
The confirmation gives a sharper picture of an evening storm that left damage behind in and around the Manhattan area. A home on Union Road sustained damage consistent with an EF-2 tornado, and other structural damage was reported along the east side of Riley County.
Laurie Harrison, with Riley County Emergency Management, said residents helped drive the response by reporting the tornado sighting. Dispatch activated outdoor warning sirens in the City of Riley after those reports came in, but the National Weather Service had not issued a tornado warning yet. Harrison said there was no tornado watch or thunderstorm warning in effect and the storm developed quickly. Some residents later said they did not hear the warning.
That gap between what residents heard, what the sirens did, and what the weather service had formally issued is now at the center of the response. Personnel worked with the siren maintenance company and determined the problem was mechanical. Repairs are expected to be finished next week. In the meantime, roads that had been closed because of flooding have reopened, and several people were rescued from stranded vehicles in the Manhattan area Thursday night.
The tornado was part of a broader severe weather event that moved through several counties in Northeast Kansas on Thursday, but the Riley County storm was the one that left the clearest mark: a confirmed EF-2 path, no reported injuries, damaged property and a warning system that did not work quite as cleanly as officials would have wanted.
