Echoes of 1991 F5 tornado in Andover after EF3 twister shreds town

Drone footage shows the Andover, Kansas, tornado exhibiting a "corkscrew vortex" before destroying homes on the afternoon of April 29, 2022.

The date April 29, 2022, will forever be a day that is remembered by those living in Andover, Kansas, due to the furious tornado that tore through the small Wichita suburb and carved a path of destruction. The tornado, which was given a preliminary EF3 rating by the National Weather Service, was extremely well documented, a trait it shares with another infamous tornado that struck the same town some 31 years ago.

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter noted the similarity between the visuals that were captured of two powerful storms. The 2022 tornado was recorded from nearly every angle and by professional storm chasers as well as average people with a smartphone. Perhaps the defining video clip of the twister was a drone shot captured by Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer that showed the storm's formation and then its raw power as it sucked the roofs of houses into its funnel cloud and then spit them out in all directions.

Despite the 1991 tornado occurring well before the rise of the digital age, many videos that were shot on camcorders documented the wrath of what was an F5 twister that brought death and destruction to Andover and the surrounding area.

Storms developed on the afternoon of April 26, 1991, from central Oklahoma to central Kansas, resulting in a major severe weather outbreak. More than 50 tornadoes were reported across six states that day, including the notorious F5 tornado that hit the town of Andover.

This image shows the track of the April 26, 1991, Wichita-Andover Tornado. (NWS Wichita)

The F5 tornado touched down at 5:49 p.m. to the east of Clearwater and remained on the ground for more than an hour, striking multiple populated areas, such as Haysville and McConnell Air Force Base, before reaching Andover. Nine major facilities at the base were damaged or destroyed by the tornado, causing what then amounted to $62 million in damages, according to NWS, the equivalent of about $132 million in 2022.

After causing damage to the base, a tornado warning was issued for Andover about 13 minutes before the twister made a direct hit, but the tornado sirens failed to activate. In response, Andover police drove to a mobile home park in Andover to warn residents to seek shelter from the incoming tornado.

About 10 minutes after police drove to the mobile home park, the tornado hit the south portion of the city. The mobile home park took a direct hit from the violent F5 tornado, leveling or destroying 84% of the homes in the park. The tornado remained on the ground and continued tracking to the northeast for the next 25 minutes, impacting the outskirts of Towanda before dissipating west of El Dorado.

In total, the 1991 tornado in Andover ripped through a 46-mile path and grew to more than 400 yards wide, according to Tornado Archive. Throughout the state of Kansas, 19 other tornadoes touched down that day, including an F4 that carved a 25-mile path of destruction that included parts of Winfield, which is about 30 miles southeast of Andover.

In south-central Kansas, more than 1,700 homes were damaged or destroyed as a result of these storms. Nearly 300 people were injured from the tornado outbreak, and 19 were killed, including 13 from the mobile home park.

It would take years to rebuild from the destruction of the 1991 tornado, and 31 years later, nearly to the exact date, the city found itself having to pick up the pieces from another powerful tornado.

On April 29, 2022, another powerful tornado tore through Andover, leaving many to recall the dramatic events that unfolded in 1991.

Shortly after exhibiting a "corkscrew vortex," a strong tornado began to destroy parts of Andover, damaging more than 1,000 buildings and creating a nearly 13-mile path, according to a preliminary survey result conducted by the NWS office in Wichita. The tornado was on the ground for 21 minutes and was rated an EF3 with maximum wind speeds of 155 mph.

As the tornado moved through Andover, the Dr. Jim Farha YMCA center in Andover sustained a direct hit, resulting in significant damage. Cars were tossed and piled up against each other as the twister continued its path into the residential area of Andover.

Multiple homes suffered significant damage in the area, and of the buildings damaged, 300 to 400 were destroyed, according to Andover Fire Chief Chad Russell. Remarkably, there were no fatalities and only four minor injuries from the 2022 tornado, a significant and positive contrast to what happened in 1991.

"We still have scars from the 1991 [F5 tornado]. I'm so thankful this tornado was not as bad as that, but we will literally be doing this for years," Russell said of the recovery and rebuilding effort, according to The Associated Press.

Comparison of the 1991 and 2022 tornado paths.

Although still quite destructive, the 2022 tornado had peak winds of more than 100 mph less than the 1991 tornado. The 2022 event also damaged fewer homes and had a significantly smaller damage path.

While the path of the tornado in 2022 was shorter and mostly to the east of the one in 1991, the two paths did cross in a rural area to the northeast of Andover, about 3 miles south of Benton, Kansas.

One Andover resident was impacted by both tornadoes. Mike Wilson lived in nearby Augusta in 1991 and drove to his family's home in Andover after the tornado ravaged the area, he told KWCH.

"If I didn't know where my mom and dad had lived, I would have never known because it was one pile of rubble after another in 1991, and I had known that I counted the piles, and that would have been my mom and dad's home, and sure enough, that was correct," Wilson told KWCH.

WSR-57 in Wichita on April 26, 1991, shortly after the Tornado Warning was issued. (NWS Wichita)

In 2022, Wilson was playing video games when he saw the tornado forming and spinning debris, prompting him to seek shelter with his family and pets. His home was damaged by the tornado, the garage completely destroyed.

Since 1991, a lot has changed with how tornadoes are spotted and warned by the NWS. The improvement in technology gave meteorologists a much better look at where the tornado in 2022 would track and where to issue tornado warnings.

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In 1991, the National Weather Service (NWS) was still using the Weather Surveillance Radar 1957 (WSR-57) to detect storms in most offices, including Wichita. The WSR-57 was the first modern radar, but only had coarse reflectivity and no velocity data, which limited the ability to forecast tornadoes.

Better radar technology was being tested in 1991, including the WSR-88D which provided doppler capabilities. The WSR-88D added doppler technology which allowed storms to be observed in slow motion and include velocity, which provides the ability to better detect tornadoes.

An April 26, 1991, radar loop of the Wichita area from NWS Norman's WSR-88D. (NWS Norman)

The NWS office in Norman, Oklahoma, which is located just to the south of Wichita and in range of the area, had access to the WSR-88D for testing purposes during the April 26 outbreak. This allowed a brand new look into how tornadic storms develop on doppler.

These radars are still used by the NWS today, but further enhancement over the years has provided better methods to forecast tornadoes. In 2008, WSR-88D radars around the country were upgraded to increase the resolution of data. A few years later, dual-polarization was added to radar sites, an upgrade that gave them the capability to better distinguish types of precipitation and remove non-weather artifacts.

During the April 29, 2022, tornado outbreak, these features helped meteorologists warn residents of possible tornadoes before they were confirmed. However, a unique circumstance caused the Andover tornado to be hidden from the radar.

The storm cell that produced the tornado was known as a low precipitation (LP) supercell, meaning there was little to no precipitation involved with the cell. This caused the radar to have trouble detecting the cell before the tornado formed.

Beverly Long of Andover, Kansas, displays a family album found in the debris of her mobile home in Andover, April 28, 1991. In the background, people sift through the wreckage for their belongings. (AP Photo / David Longstreath)

"Because radar needs objects for the radar beam to bounce off of -- most often precipitation -- there was initially nothing for the radar to 'see' within the region of the storm that the tornado developed in," AccuWeather Senior Storm Warning Meteorologist Rich Putnam explained. "It was not until the tornado had officially touched down and began lofting debris, that the radar had objects to bounce off of."

Despite the radar having trouble picking up the tornado, an unusually high cloud base made it visible from very far away.

"The height of the cloud base (bottom of the cloud) is largely determined by the amount of relative humidity in the lower atmosphere. The more humid the air is, the lower the cloud base, with higher cloud bases expected in drier environments," said Putnam.

Tornadoes most often form in environments where cloud bases are under 1,000 meters, or about 3,000 feet, above ground level, but the Andover tornado formed at a cloud base between 1,250 and 1,500 meters -- around 4,500 feet up. This caused the tornado to be visible for many miles around the circulation, according to Putnam.

"The higher the cloud base, the harder it is for the funnel to connect all the way from the parent cloud to the surface of the Earth," Putnam said.

In contrast, the 1991 F5 tornado was what Porter described as a "classic stovepipe tornado." Video of that tornado can be seen below. Another commonality that the two twisters shared: Neither was rain-wrapped, which also contributed to the storms' remarkable visibility, Porter said.

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