Enjoy today’s taste of spring, Wichita – cold weather is on its way back to the region.
Well, colder than what we’ve seen in several days, at least. After highs flirting with 70 today, Friday will peak in the low 40s in the Wichita area. And they’ll stay there through the weekend.
If you put your heavy jacket away for the season, pull it back out again…or you’ll likely wish you had it.
Mike Smith, chief executive officer of WeatherData Services, a Wichita-based subsidiary of AccuWeather, will give a presentation titled “Miracle at Greensburg” at the Wichita Garden Show on March 7.
The presentation, which will be at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Century II, tells the story of how more than 200 lives were saved during the most
intense tornado ever observed on radar.
This is “Tornado Week” on The Weather Channel, and there’s a strong Wichita flavor to the cable channel’s activities.
Nine storm chasers are featured on The Weather Channel’s Web site, including Katherine Bay, Jim Reed and Jon Davies. Bay and Reed live in Wichita, and Davies called Wichita home for several years before moving to the Kansas City area not long ago.
I have met and chatted with a couple of other chasers included on the site: Chuck Doswell and Roger Hill.
The site includes profiles of each chaser, a Q & A with them, and photos and videos of severe weather.
The first of 22 storm spotter training classes scheduled for various towns and locations in Sedgwick County will be held on Wednesday in Mount Hope.
The Sedgwick County Emergency Management office will present all but one of the classes, which are exactly like the courses presented by the National Weather Service this spring. Chance Hayes, warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service, will present the class scheduled for March 10 at Northwest High School.
The classes are free and open to the public, focusing on what spotters should watch for and how they should make their reports. All classes start at 7 p.m., unless otherwise noted.
The schedule:
Mount Hope Community Building, 105 S. Ohio, Feb. 25
Colwich City Building, 310 S. Second, Feb. 26
Goddard City Building, 118 N. Main, Feb. 27
Haysville Middle School, 900 W. Grand, March 2
Clearwater Fire Station, 319 W. Ross, March 3
Bel Aire City Building, 7651 E. Central Park Ave., March 5
Andale City Hall, 326 N. Main, March 6
Derby Police Department, 229 N. Baltimore, March 9
Wichita Northwest High School, 1220 N. Tyler Road, March 10.
Kechi City Hall, 220 W. Kechi Road, March 12
Eastborough City Building, #1 Douglas Ave., March 13
Mulvane Fire Station, 910 E. Main, March 14 at 9 a.m.
Viola City Building, Main and Wilson, March 16
Garden Plain Senior Center, 1006 N. Main, March 17
Maize City Hall, 10100 W. Grady, March 18
Bentley City Building, 150 S. Wichita, March 23
Sedgwick Community Center, 520 Commercial, March 24
Cheney Senior Center, 516 N. Main, March 25
Valley Center City Hall, 121 S. Meridian, March 26
Park City Senior Center, 6100 N. Hydraulic, March 27
McConnell Air Force Base, Readiness Building 683, April 1
Oaklawn Community Center, 2937 E. Oaklawn Drive, April 2
Wichita soared to an afternoon high of 74 on Tuesday, a toasty taste of spring on a mid-February day.
But it wasn’t quite enough to earn a spot in the record books. The record for February 17 is 75, set in 1970. For want of a single degree, Tuesday will go down as nothing more than just another day in February
…in the 26-county warning coverage area handled by the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service.
The first class will be at 6:30 p.m. in Cottonwood Falls. For a full schedule of classes presented by the weather service, click on the link attached to this sentence.
Sedgwick County Emergency Management will present more than 20 of the classes as well. The presentations will be exactly the same as those given by the National Weather Service, Emergency Management Director Randy Duncan said.
Check my blog Monday for a schedule.
This is only the third February since 1950 to have at least six straight days with temperatures of at least 65 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The only other two years to accomplish that feat were 1996 and 1976.
Interestingly, those two years accomplished it late in the month: from Feb. 19-25 in 1996 and Feb. 23-28 in 1976.
In 2009, the dates were Feb. 5-10.
Sedgwick County Emergency Management tests the tornado sirens every Monday at noon — unless it’s cloudy.
“We don’t want someone, when they hear the siren test on Monday at noon, to look up at the sky and think ‘Oh, my gosh, this could really be a tornado,’” Director Randy Duncan said. “That’s why we confine our testing solely to clear days, so there’s not an easy way to mistake a test for an actual warning.”
What that means, however, is that if the sirens sound on a cloudy day — morning, noon or afternoon — that a tornado warning has been issued.
“Theoretically, it could happen any time of the day or any time of the year,” Duncan said.
….today is the anniversary of the coldest day ever recorded in the state.
On Feb. 13, 1905, the temperature dove to -40 in Lebanon, which is located in Smith County.
Lebanon is better known as being virtually the geographic center of the nation, but it has a spot in state record book as well.
….was recorded on this date – Feb. 12 – in 1899, according to National Weather Service records.
The temperature fell to -22 on this date 110 years ago.