A squall line of severe thunderstorms, packing two waves of high winds, rolled through southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri early Friday leaving thousands without power.

In Carthage as of 11:30 a.m., the number of homes and businesses without power was down to fewer than 100, according to Chuck Bryant with Carthage Water and Electric Plant.

Joplin-based Empire District Electric Company, which serves Jasper County outside Carthage and thousands of others across Southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas, said on its Web site that 60,000 customers were without power.

Keith Stammer, Jasper County Emergency Management Director, said no injuries had been reported anywhere in Jasper County Friday morning. Doug Cramer, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said they hadn’t received any reports of injuries either.

One-two punch

Cramer said the storm rolled into western Jasper County shortly after 7 a.m., with heavy rain, hail and winds of between 40 and 50 miles per hour.

About 15 minutes later, what Cramer called a “wake low” blasted in with sustained winds of more than 65 miles per hour and gusts of between 85 and 90 miles per hour.

“It was a squall line, followed by a wake low, and the wake low did more damage in the Joplin area and western Jasper County,” Cramer said. “We have nine reported damage tracks and we’re sending four crews out to survey the damage and determine what happened. We have some reports of tornadoes, but none confirmed. It seems the straight-line winds did the most damage.”

Cramer said the Joplin airport reported about a half-inch of rain, but other areas reported as much as three and a half inches.

Cramer said that moisture, along with the heavy rains the area has seen in the past few weeks means flooding is likely in low-water areas and along streams.

Damaged homes

Stammer said officials reported widespread power outages and trees down throughout the area. He said minor structural damage was also widespread with concentrated areas where the damage was more severe.

“What the first front didn’t get, the second wave took out,” Stammer said. “The area bordered by Highway 171, Highway 96 and County Route YY seems to be where the heaviest structural damage was concentrated, but we’ve got trees down and serious damage all over the county.”

Stammer said much of the damage to roofs and structures was from trees falling on them. On the west side of Joplin, the winds apparently blew down part of a television station’s transmitting tower. Fortunately the tower missed homes and fell on cars.

Damage was reported from the towers supporting cables.

Winds blew the roof off at least one home northwest of Carl Junction. A moving van was also blown on its side in the same area.

Barns and outbuildings were destroyed or severely damaged in the area around Carl Junction as well.

Local response

Chuck Bryant, with Carthage Water and Electric Plant, said trees blowing down caused much of the damage around Carthage as well.

“Our tree-trimming program works well, but it doesn’t help when something takes down the whole tree,” Bryant said. “We’ve probably got fewer than 100 customers without power as of 11:30 a.m. Our crews were out in the height of the storm working to repair the damage.”

Cramer said the storm that caused the damage moved across southern Missouri at between 55 and 60 miles per hour. It was entering western Kentucky by 11 a.m.

He said the weather would likely calm down the rest of Friday, but a warm front lingering over northern Arkansas could cause more storms and rain later this weekend depending on where it moves.

What is it?

A “wake low” will often form along the backside of large areas of rain or large complexes of showers and thunderstorms, sometimes known as mesoscale convective complexes (MCS). If conditions aloft are just right, downward motion following the area of precipitation will result in strong warming at the surface, which will further strengthen the development of the wake low. The strong winds develop as the pressure difference grows between this small, but relatively strong area of low pressure and an adjacent area of high pressure. Source: National Weather Service