Severe storm season revives the myth of the “Tonganoxie Split”—but how true is the lore?

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Kansas City urban legend suggests that the small Kansas town of Tonganoxie plays a big part in the weather of the city.

The “Tonganoxie Split,” as it’s called, states that a storm cell “splits” as it moves toward the heart of the metro. A number of citizens find this to be true. Reddit—specifically the Kansas City page—and other message boards crawl with people claiming that this phenomenon exists.

The Tonganoxie Split is real. #kcwx #mowx #kswx pic.twitter.com/3dqv39XUAa

— DanWeinbaumKC ️ (@DanWeinbaumKC) June 5, 2024

While people are always allowed to believe anything they want, this myth is just that.

While discussing the Tonganoxie Split with Fox 4 meteorologist Joe Lauria, KCTV5’s chief meteorologist Luke Dorris, and Kansas State Climatologist Dr. Douglas Goodin, several things stuck out.

Many large cities have myths such as this to blame for a lack of weather, with St. Louis specifically being one of the more interesting examples.

“In St. Louis, where I went to school, some would say it wouldn’t get hit by storms because of the Arch,” Lauria says. “Many areas have their theories, but the vast majority are proven to not really exist.”

“Everywhere I have lived has had a legend such as this,” Dorris says. “In St. Louis, people said we were protected from severe storms and tornadoes because of the Mississippi River. They do not know that one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history [the 1896 East St. Louis Tornado] crossed the Mississippi River there, sank boats, and killed many people.”

Dr. Goodin mentioned that Omaha even has a myth about severe weather conditions, similar to that of the Tonganoxie Split.

“The Tonganoxie Split doesn’t exist the way people think it does,” Goodin says. When I was up in Nebraska, where I did my graduate work, they used to talk about the Omaha Dome. It was a similar idea that somehow the city repelled storms. These are certainly not unusual things for people to talk about.”

While Dr. Goodin does not deal directly with thunderstorm climatology, his insight was very helpful.

“There is evidence that urban areas and urban heat islands do impact the behavior of storms,” he says. “The idea that urban heat islands affect thunderstorms is likely valid.”

One study that Dr. Goodin pointed to was a 2011 study, conducted by Dev Niyogi and written by Brian Wallheimer—both of Purdue University.

This study was conducted in Indianapolis, and showed that, in some cases, storms do split around the city.

“About 60 percent of the daytime thunderstorms do seem to change their characteristics,” claims Niyogi in the study. “What the thunderstorm is really responding to is changes in the environment.”

However, a different study mentioned by Dr. Goodin shares a different result. “The Atlanta Thunderstorm Effect,” a 2010 study done by Mace Bentley, Tony Stallins, and Walker Ashley of Northern Illinois University, showed that storms more readily develop over Atlanta.

“The lifting of warm, humid air over the city center often creates clouds that can develop into thunderstorms,” the study claims.

Conflicting studies don’t help solve the question, leaving us with the one thing that never steers us wrong: cold, hard facts.

Dorris included a map of every tornado that has hit the Kansas City area in recorded history, provided by the website Tornado Archive. This screenshot of the data may surprise some people.

Map of every recorded tornado in Kansas City. // Photo Courtesy of Tornado Archive

Tornadoes are rated on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale—formerly known as the Fujita (F) scale, until Feb. 1, 2007.

It is a common misconception that the EF scale rates tornadoes based solely on wind speed. This is not true. Tornadoes are rated F or EF 0-5, based on damage done to structures in the area.

Occasionally, tornadoes that do no damage or are too old to rate are given a rating of “Unknown,” or “EFU.” Tornadoes that get a rating of EF3 are known as “strong tornadoes,” while EF4 and 5 tornadoes are deemed “violent.”

No less than 35 F/EF3+ tornadoes have hit the area in recorded history, with the most recent Linwood EF4 tornado touching ground in the area on May 28, 2019. 

As seen on the map, merely two EF5 tornadoes have hit the area, as far as records show.

Probably the most devastating argument against the existence of the Split is the fact that tornadoes have hit New York City. In total, 55 tornadoes have hit NYC in recorded history. The number is lower here than in Kansas City, not because the city is a larger heat island, but because it is in a location less favorable for the formation of supercell thunderstorms.

Map of every tornado to hit New York City. // Photo Courtesy of Tornado Archive

“It makes sense that there is nothing to show a real split, as there is nothing special about Tonganoxie that would impact the weather in the KC Metro,” Dorris says. “A massive lake or a humongous topographical feature like a large change in elevation would do it, but the difference in elevation between KC and Tonganoxie is about 20 feet. Storms several miles high don’t care about 20 feet.”

Yet, there are cities with exceptions to the rule. Cities such as Buffalo, New York, and Marquette, Michigan experience heavy lake effect snow, due to the proximity to the Great Lakes.

Another considerable myth is that mountain ranges, on occasion, protect areas from storms. However, there is one notable event that shows mountain protection is an exception, not the rule. The 1987 Saragosa F4 tornado that killed at least 30 people in West Texas.

If mountain ranges protect from storms, the Davis Mountains should have protected Saragosa from that monster. But they didn’t. Tornadoes are miles-high tubes of rotating air that do not discriminate based on topography.

As we all know, 2024 has been an incredibly active tornado season so far. This could be due to the rapid heating and cooling of the lower northern Pacific Ocean (El Niño/La Niña) and climate change. 

“There is certainly an effect of the El Niño this year, and this is a fairly active year for severe weather,” Goodin says. “This contrasts last year which was fairly inactive. The El Niño/La Niña cycle and warming climate are not unrelated. The oscillating ocean temperatures are impacted by global climate change. While it’s certainly true that this year has been affected by the El Niño, the El Niño itself has been affected by global climate change.”

Several tornado warnings have already been issued for the area in 2024. A post by Fox 4 Weather on X (formerly Twitter) shows the map.

Tornado warnings issued for our area this year. Sometimes tornados happen in non-warned areas (Metro I’m looing at you) and sometimes warnings don’t verify. You can see the hot spots though in 2024 so far. #mowx #kswx #kcwx #fox4kc JL pic.twitter.com/PDJAbass7b

— Fox 4 Weather KC (@fox4wx) May 29, 2024

It is undeniable that storms do hit the area. Tornadoes do as well. While the late Dan Henry did coin the Tonganoxie Split, there is no science to back it up. 

In the words of Joe Lauria, “Storms do weird things all the time. That’s just the way it is.”