Nighttime tornadoes and the night Udall vanished RoadyGoat
1955Shortly after 10:30 p.m. on May 25, 1955, an F5 tornado dropped on the south end of Udall, Kansas, in the dark, without warning. Most of the town was asleep. Around 80 people were killed and hundreds more injured, making it the deadliest tornado in Kansas history. Nearly the whole town was flattened. The cruel truth out here in storm country is that nighttime twisters are roughly twice as deadly as daytime ones. You can't see the funnel, you're asleep, and warnings arrive too late. And the storms don't quit at sunset. A river of fast air called the nocturnal low-level jet often forms a few thousand feet up after dark, feeding wind shear that keeps supercells spinning long after the day's heat fades. When the sky goes quiet at night, that's exactly when you keep a weather radio close.