Weekend summary & storm wrap from last night

In typical August fashion, we are dealing with heat, humidity, wind, and storms, and some of them last night were pretty intense, especially across northern Kansas. Luckily we didn't have any 80+ mph winds like they had in Hastings, NE yesterday evening, but there were several measured winds between 60 and 70. Rainfall amounts from around the area include:
Plainville: 1.05"
Salina: 0.72"
Concordia: 0.66"
Hutch: 0.50"
Jabara Airport: 0.45"
Winfield: 0.41"
Wichita: 0.31"
Hill City: 0.20"
Newton: 0.18"
Smith Center: 0.16'

The lightning last night put on quite the show, and thanks to Dennis Thompson for sending in this wonderful lightning picture from near Wellington. Lightning is so incredible to watch, but it has such tremendous danger too and there's just no way to know where it will strike next. In an average year, there are more lightning fatalities than tornadoes. In 2014, 19 people have been killed by lightning alone, none of them in Kansas.

We will have to watch for spotty storms to pop up again this afternoon and into the evening hours. It shouldn't be widespread and the likelihood of severe storms will be on the lower end of the scale, but we shall see how the afternoon progress.

One thing that you will see during the middle of the week is more wind. We haven't had that many windy days as of late, but gusty winds will be kicking in by Wednesday and Thursday.

Millie and I had a wonderful time at a Big Brothers Big Sisters fundraiser in Newton Saturday evening. I was the emcee for the evening and Millie was the entertainment (mostly walking around and looking for any accidental food drops) She's just warming up her greeting skills for the Kansas State Fair, which begins in less than 3 weeks. Hard to believe.