04-06-2025
Didn't get a tornado alert? How Johnson County notifies about severe weather
As storms rolled through the Kansas City metro Tuesday afternoon, Johnson County issued alerts for its constituents primarily in Gardner, Edgerton, southern Olathe and southern Overland Park.
Sarah Hayes, the director of community preparedness for Johnson County's office of emergency management, said that the county activated its Emergency Operations Center to send out warnings through NotifyJoco — an alert system that residents have to sign up for in order to get notifications about severe weather in their area.
NotifyJoCo is the county's main way to send alerts, but it will only notify residents if their neighborhood/area is impacted and if people are signed up.
If people don't reside in the impacted area or aren't signed up, they won't get notifications. To inform more residents, the emergency management team posts on social media with information around the weather.
Hayes also recommended residents utilize multiple apps or systems in order to receive updates on the weather in case one falters.
The weather service issued a tornado warning Tuesday afternoon for the Gardner, Spring Hill and Edgerton areas. At 1:45 p.m., radar indicated that there was rotation in a severe thunderstorm over Edgerton that was moving to the east at 40 mph.
Shortly after 2 p.m., the weather service issued another tornado warning for southeastern Johnson County. A quick-moving thunderstorm was over Overland Park and was moving east at 40 mph. Radar indicated a rotation within the storm.
Hayes said that NotifyJoCo issued its first thunderstorm warning at 1:32 p.m.. At 1:35 p.m., the county issued its first tornado watch, followed by a tornado warning at 1:45 p.m.
The second tornado warning was at 2:08 p.m.
As of 2:16 p.m., all of Johnson County is in a flash flood warning until 7 p.m.
Residents can sign up for alerts at
