BARTON COUNTY —A powerful supercell thunderstorm tracked straight south during the early evening of hours Sunday. It produced extreme wind gusts but no tornado, according to meteorologist Chance Hayes with the National Weather Service in Wichita.
The weather service conducted a damage survey across Barton County on Monday and determined there were only straight line winds of 70 to 80 miles per hour.
The Russell Airport reported a 77 mph wind gust. The strong winds moved into Great Bend, which resulted in widespread wind damage throughout community. There were two pockets of extremely strong winds. Those included an area south to southeast from the court house downtown and another on the west side of the town.
In addition to the strong winds, the storm produced wind driven hail up to softball size. The weather service expects to do additional storm damage survey work this week in Russell County, according to Hayes.