Severe Thunderstorm Warning Issued for Butler, Chase, Greenwood Counties KS
If you are in immediate danger, call emergency services now.
For real-time, official alerts and instructions for your exact location, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) as applicable. This article is a data summary, not a substitute for the issuing agency's live warning.
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Wichita KS issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Butler, Chase, and Greenwood counties in Kansas effective until 10:45 PM CDT May 18.
What this NWS weather alert tells you, and what most readers miss
This notice was issued by NOAA on May 30, 2026 and geographically references Kansas. Its severity classification of "high" signals how the issuing agency weighs the risk of harm if no action is taken - "critical" and "high" tier alerts typically carry direct consumer actions, while "medium" and "low" tend toward informational guidance or monitoring advisories. The category it belongs to - Weather Alerts - determines the warning protocol behind it, which shapes what protective action (seeking shelter, following evacuation orders if issued, monitoring official updates) is recommended and which agency holds authority to issue or cancel it.
Most readers skim a notice like this, check whether they are personally affected, and move on. The more useful lens is to read it as a data point about the issuing system: how quickly NOAA detected the hazard, how precise the geographic or product-identifier scope is, and whether similar notices have clustered in the same category or region in the last 90 days. Cluster patterns frequently precede a broader regulatory action, a single localized NWS weather alert is isolated; three of them within a quarter often indicate a supply-chain, infrastructure, or seasonal driver that will keep producing notices until something structural changes.
For decision-making, Areazine pairs each alert with the original agency URL, the full agency name, and a timestamp so you can verify the notice against the primary source before acting on it. Tags on this item (weather, alert, Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Kansas) map to related alerts in the same area of risk - browsing them together gives a clearer picture than any single notice alone, because the shape of an ongoing issue only becomes visible across multiple sequential alerts.
Alert Details
Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued by NWS Wichita KS. Effective from 2026-05-18T21:58:00-05:00 until 2026-05-18T22:45:00-05:00. Severity: Severe. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Observed.
Affected Areas
Southern Chase County in east central Kansas, Northeastern Butler County in south central Kansas, and Greenwood County in southeastern Kansas. Locations impacted include El Dorado, Eureka, Leon, Madison, Hamilton, Rosalia, Cassoday, Virgil, Matfield Green, Eureka City Lake, Thrall, Eureka Airport, El Dorado State Park, Wonsevu, El Dorado Airport, and El Dorado Lake. This includes Interstate 35 between Mile Markers 70 and 114.
What You Should Do
For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building.
Expected Conditions
At 9:58 PM CDT, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 9 miles east of Burns to 10 miles northeast of Leon to 8 miles east of Douglass, moving east at 60 mph. Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail (1.00 inch). Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Source: Radar indicated.
Timeline
Alert effective 2026-05-18T21:58:00-05:00, expires and ends 2026-05-18T22:45:00-05:00.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this NWS weather alert.