Central Kansas
A few cities include: Hays, Salina and Wichita.
Terrain: Plains with some hills and a few ponds/lakes.
Local tornado season: Peaks between May and mid-June.
Road network: Good with relatively small gaps.
Radar coverage: Good overall, limited in some areas.
Central Kansas is a popular area to storm chase, as it frequently produces intense supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes. Long-track tornadoes and very large hail are relatively common as well. It is a typical area for thunderstorms coming off of the High Plains to mature over. At the same time, damaging winds can be an increasing threat, especially with eastward extent, as merging storms can form intense squall lines as they propagate across Kansas.
Terrain
The terrain of central Kansas is a mixture of relatively flat plains and rolling hills. North-central Kansas is home to the Smoky Hills and multiple rivers and several ponds/lakes are scattered through the countryside. This can make chasing a little bit difficult in some cases, but generally the hills and waterways are not obstructive enough to cause major problems.
The heart of central Kansas is a bit more flat, but even here there are the occasional hills or river to navigate around. South-central Kansas has more in the way of hills and rivers, yet similar to north-central Kansas, these generally do not make storm chasing in the area unmanageable.
Road network
Like western Kansas, there are plenty of primary, paved roads traveling both east-west and north-south across central Kansas. A grid layout of dirt roads is common between the main roads, although there are a few cases in which the road network may be a bit limited. One area in particular is south and southwest of Medicine Lodge in south-central Kansas. Here, the secondary dirt roads are a bit more irregular and travel can be difficult when these roads become wet. This area can be identified on the map above as western Barber County.
Interstate-70 travels from west to east across north-central Kansas. Interstate-35 connects Wichita with Oklahoma and is the approximate dividing line between south-central and southeastern Kansas. Storm chasing in and around Wichita can be a little difficult due to dense population, but it usually only takes a few miles to get out of the metropolitan area.
I-135 extends northbound from Wichita to I-70. Beyond the I-70/I-135 junction, a four-lane highway (US-81) continues northward to Minneapolis, KS, before downgrading to an expressway toward Nebraska. This is a familiar stretch of roadway for storm chasers traveling to Nebraska.
Radar coverage
The duo of KDDC and KICT offers good radar coverage for all of south-central Kansas. KUEX, just over the Nebraska border, covers parts of north-central Kansas. Between the two radar sites, roughly 20 miles north or south of I-70, radar coverage can be a bit limited in Central Kansas. While adjacent radars can still identify storms, lower-level radar scans may not be available here. KTWX can sometimes help fill in the gaps, as it covers areas near and east of Salina.
In summary, central Kansas is mostly a favorable area to storm chase. Road networks are generally good, terrain is manageable in most areas and radar coverage is fairly good as well. The few minor obstacles of the occasional river or hilly area, for the most part, do not get too much in the way of storm chasing in central Kansas.