Early in the evening of 26 April 1991, a strong tornado tracked through the south and east suburbs of Wichita, KS. The synoptic weather situation that occurred was typical of a springtime pattern in the central United States. Many tornadoes touched down that day from Nebraska to Texas, but the most devastating twister tracked just south of Wichita and flattened the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park in Andover - a town east of Wichita in Butler County.

The Wichita/Andover tornado was spawned by a supercell thunderstorm that moved northeastward from northern Oklahoma into south-central Kansas. This thunderstorm produced four separate tornadoes along its path. The third and strongest tornado caused tremendous damage and destruction in Sedgwick and Butler Counties. This tornado reached an intensity of F5, the highest rating on the Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale; it was on the ground for approximately 46 miles from about 20 miles southwest of Wichita, near Clearwater, to 10 miles northeast of Wichita, near El Dorado.

Fifteen of the 19 deaths in Kansas occurred in the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park. Sedgwick and Butler Counties were hardest hit by the tornadoes that affected south-central Kansas. A total of 1,728 homes were damaged or destroyed by the tornadoes, including the destruction of most of the 241 mobile homes in the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park in Andover.

Twenty-four severe weather watches were issued on 26 April. In all, 71 tornadoes occurred, 69 of which were in the watches; all tornado deaths were in valid tornado watches. The National Weather Service started raising the red-flag of concern early on 25 April when they indicated in public releases that their computer models of the atmosphere were ?indicating this to be a very significant severe weather producer with tornadoes occurring across the Central/Southern Plains.?

Early on the morning of April 26th, the National Weather Service painted a ?high risk? for tornadoes over the Plains. Statements later in the day stressed the high danger in this situation. Their tornado watch number 183 was issued just after Noon, some six hours before the killer tornadoes struck in Kansas.

This tornado outbreak was the worst killer-tornado outbreak in Kansas since the Udall tornado of 25 May 1955.