Storms bring 85 mph winds, tree crash and outages to Lawrence

Residents in Lawrence woke to a large tree through a home in the Pinkney neighborhood, snapped limbs on Maine Street and a long stretch of power loss in North Lawrence after storms swept through eastern Kansas Monday night. The worst local wind recorded by a personal weather station monitored by the National Weather Service hit about four miles southwest of downtown Lawrence, where speeds reached 85 miles per hour.

The damage was visible by Tuesday morning north of Fifth and Maine streets, where a tree had fallen into a home in the Pinkney neighborhood and crews were already removing debris. Farther south, the 400 block of Maine Street showed snapped trees and broken limbs left behind by the storm. Rain totals in Lawrence ranged from about one-tenth of an inch to one-half inch, and the National Weather Service said it did not receive hail reports for the area.

The storm also disrupted utilities across the city. A portion of North Lawrence, generally north of Lyon Street, was without power for an extended period Monday night into Tuesday morning. Evergy’s outage map showed 90 active outages and 528 customers out systemwide at 8:59 p.m. Monday, underscoring how quickly a fast-moving storm can spread beyond one damaged block and into a wider service problem.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical said its crews responded to more than 20 weather-related incidents beginning around 8:45 p.m. Monday, with most of the calls tied to electrical issues. The agency’s response, along with work by utility crews and cleanup teams, pointed to the strain severe weather can place on a city when wind, debris and outages hit at the same time.

The storm came during a turbulent weather stretch across the region. The National Weather Service in Topeka said seven tornadoes were confirmed from storms on May 18, 2026, including four EF-1 tornadoes with estimated peak winds of 95 to 100 miles per hour. Its event summaries also point to earlier damaging-wind outbreaks in northeast Kansas, including a June 5, 2015 storm with winds up to 75 miles per hour, widespread outages and tree damage, and a July 7, 2014 wind event that struck Lawrence.

For Douglas County, the latest round of damage was not the result of a confirmed tornado, but it still brought the kind of cleanup that follows a spring severe-weather night: blocked streets, damaged homes, downed limbs and crews working early to restore service. The National Weather Service’s Lawrence Municipal Airport observations and the active forecast for severe thunderstorms across northeast Kansas show the region remains in a pattern where another round of dangerous wind is always a possibility.