Kansas Atmospheres

*Note: This post is partly comprised of an article originally published in the June 30 edition of the 'Council Grove Republican' newspaper. A PDF of the original story can be found here . My sister and I got an up-close view of a NASA high-altitude experiment this summer. Early in June I read an article about a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital   research project based out of the Salina Airport. The  Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere (DCOTSS) project was meant to investigate the effects of intense thunderstorms on the stratosphere over the U.S. The goal was to look inside of a storm as it grows and to determine whether the stratosphere’s composition has changed because of fluctuations in climate. The project was based in Salina because of its central location for viewing big storms occurring over a large portion of the U.S. Since I was working in Council Grove at the time, and my little sister Melinda lived in Emporia, I thought it would be fun for both of ...

Let's take a journey down memory lane, shall we? It's 2011. I was a fresh high school graduate, a freshman in college at Colorado State-Pueblo, and a freshly-minted drinker thanks to some wonderful friends who were in a fraternity. I had a new little red sporty car, an ego the size of Pike's Peak, and a view of that storied mountain from my college dorm. Life was good. Cut to springtime, and my somewhat picturesque college campus was coming back to life. We had heavy snows in January and February that year, which was sort-of unusual for southern Colorado but later helped welcome a gorgeous start to spring in mid-March. By April, the atmosphere was primed for some severe weather, and I had made some new friends who just so happened to live in Colorado and chase storms. My pattern of chasing in hybrid vehicles started in 2011. Back at the start of high school in 2006, I seriously thought I wanted to be a professional storm chaser, either for science or media or something. My ...

Have you ever noticed that every map of Tornado Alley is different? No two graphics depicting the region in the central U.S. where tornadoes historically occur most frequently are the same. A quick Google image search pulls up a ton of samples, none of which have exactly the same outline. Accuweather.com has several maps like the one above indicating where their meteorologists believe Tornado Alley lies. I say "their meteorologists" because Tornado Alley is an arbitrary thing. It's an imaginary blob including several states where tornadoes historically impact with seasonal reliability and ferocity. Granted, it's an imaginary blob we've been using as a social reference point for 50 years, but still.  In that time, we've learned so much about severe weather and how to forecast it. We've learned that tornadoes, and the storms which spawn them, aren't limited to just the Great Plains. That's where you're more likely to see photogenic storms, out in...

We need to change the way we think about outdoor sirens for storm warnings. It's 2022. There's enough technology and digital tools available for individuals to receive weather warnings, whether or not they have a smart phone. If you live in Kansas, any radio or TV outlet will be ready to break into emergency programming to broadcast warnings. If you're on social media, those same outlets have accounts where you can find weather information in a pinch. I'm not saying we should remove  outdoor sirens   or make them obsolete. They serve an important function as part of the severe weather warning system. I'm suggesting we change our thinking about them to be the last method of warning, not the first. There's a lot of psychology involved in how people process warnings for dangerous weather conditions. After the Joplin, MO tornado in 2011, meteorologists and emergency management officials conducted a survey of survivors to determine what motivated them to seek shelter...

It's been quite an interesting -- and at times wild -- year of weather experiences for me.  I'll start with a storm chase story. My sister, chase partner and I successfully followed tornado-warned storms back in April. The coveted "Saturday setup" looked ripe for storms over my backyard (eastern Kansas) on April 29, so I made plans to meet my little sis Lindy at her apartment in Emporia early in the afternoon. Chase partner Mira drove up from Joplin and joined us just in time for a tornado watch to be issued and storms to start firing further west near Herington. We hopped in Mira's tiny Honda Fit and headed west on Highway 50 into Chase County. The little blue hatchback is actually a solid chase vehicle; its small size guarantees that you don't get too close for fear of being tossed like a used tissue. We're not the type of chasers that desire getting right underneath the darn thing, we just want a good angle to safely view it and leave if it starts to sw...