Father's Day Weekend

Well, it was another busy day for Storm Team 12 with severe storms and a few tornadoes again in Kansas. We did not have any extensive damage with the storms tonight, but I'm sure a few more farmers had wheat damaged from the large hail. My folks last about 5 head of cattle in Wednesday nights storm activity which caused a power line to fall on them and they were electrocuted. So, it has been a rough week with the thunderstorms. I'm posting pictures of the wall cloud that formed over Haysville Thursday night. It is very impressive and I'm very glad we didn't have anything on the ground for more than a minute or two. It could've been very bad. Thanks everyone for the nice compliments on the coverage; it is major team effort to pull off several hours of continuous coverage and thanks for being patient with us. We hate covering up prime time TV and I don't like to be on repeating myself over and over, but when there is a tornado threat and we can confirm that one is on the ground, we just have to do it. I promise you we will not cover prime time TV Friday night or Saturday.

It is Father's Day weekend so I have to send out a greeting to my dad. He taught me everything I ever needed to know about weather and then some. Now I'm passing it on to Millie. Have a great weekend everyone.

Questions Answered

I thought this would be a good chance to answer some of the questions that are posted here on the blog. One of the more recent questions was from Peggy wanting to know if weathermen disagree. The answer is yes, we do disagree from time to time, and occasionally we arm wrestle to see which forecast we should use. =) Actually, if there is disagreement, we put our heads together and figure out some compromise. Over the years I've discovered that no one meteorologist is correct all the time (that's hard to say) but we do the best we can with the data that is available to us. Forecasting precipitation of any kind is usually difficult, but predicting snowfall amounts is the hardest (that's my opinion).

There was another question someone posted on here a few weeks ago wanting to know the record for tornado warnings in one given day. The record books don't keep track of the number of warnings issued, but we do have a record for the number of tornadoes in one day for Kansas. That number happens to be 36 on May 5th, 2007 and the most tornadoes in one year for our state is 137 in 2007.

The wheat harvest will get underway very soon, so a stretch of dry weather would be welcomed by many farmers around the area. I know my dad has requested some dry weather for Father's Day so he can plant milo, but I keep telling him I have no pull with Mother Nature.

Another Busy Weekend

This is another busy weekend with severe weather. We will probably see some rather intense storms on Sunday with hail, strong winds, and locally heavy rainfall the main concerns. Most of eastern Kansas is under a flash flood watch through Monday, so be expecting some heavy amounts of rain Sunday night.

I spent part of the week in Colorado Springs. It was a short trip into the mountains, but a fun adventure nonetheless. The clouds forming on Pikes Peak were truly amazing to watch. The moisture gets forced up the mountain, cools and condenses, and then you have a cloud. They move much faster when you see them up close, and being the weather geek that I am, I found it quite fascinating so I had to take a picture. If I remember correctly, the temperature was 28 degrees at the top of the mountain and I was in a short sleeve shirt. Okay, so even the weatherman does some dumb things from time to time.

I hope you are enjoying the weekend. I'll be here to watch the storms on Sunday.