…but this time it’s not in Wichita.
More than 10 inches of rain fell in Gove County over about a 5-hour period Wednesday, but no tropical storm or hurricane is to blame.
“It was a crazy amount of rain,” Mick McGuire, a senior meteorologist with the Goodland office of the National Weather Service, told me.
A resident who lives four miles southeast of Grainfield in Gove County recorded 10.6 inches of rain, and a nearby neighbor reported 11 inches. To put those totals in perspective, they surpass even the 10.31 inches of rain that fell on Wichita over a 24-hour period on Sept. 12.
A cluster of thunderstorms developed along a warm front, McGuire said, and as they moved east new storms would develop along the same line. It’s a pattern known as “training” - storms following the same line like railroad cars on a track - and it can lead to substantial amounts of rain falling in a small area.
Remarkably, no flash flooding was reported as a result of the heavy rain.
“It was a pretty small area,” McGuire said, comparing it to “a bullseye” on radar. You can see that in the radar image below.
Rainfall totals from Wednesday in northwest Kansas
……..Wichita normally has its first 100-degree day on or about July 5, according to the National Weather Service. The city still hasn’t reached triple digits this year, and didn’t last year until Aug. 7.
There have even been a few years when Wichita never hit 100 during the summer, though the most recent case was 1927.
Years that see late-arriving 100s have one thing in common: plenty of moisture in the spring and early summer. That makes sense, really. Energy that would otherwise be pushing temperatures soaring is instead being spent returning moisture to the atmosphere.
On this date in 1936, the high temperature in Fredonia reached 121 degrees. That set a record for hottest temperature in Kansas which still stands.
But the heat wasn’t restricted to the southeast corner of the state. Just six days later after Fredonia hit 121, Alton in northcentral Kansas matched it.
Sounds like the set-up for a punchline — but it’s not.
Researchers say that global warming could eventually lead to more kidney stones in much of the United States. Not only that, they calculate the direct and indirect costs of treating perhaps two million new kidney stone cases a year could climb $1 billion by 2050. That’s an increase of 25%.
Previous research has found that the risk of kidney stone formation increases when urine volume drops, which happens when a person is poorly hydrated. Global warming could increase the number of cases of kidney stones by 30%, researchers say. The projection is based on the theory that global warming will make people sweat more, and without proper hydration they will be at greater risk for kidney stones.
The researchers caution that if the risk increases directly with temperature, high-population coastal regions could see the largest jumps in the number of kidney stone cases. If, however, the risk suddenly climbs steeply at some threshold temperature, a band stretching from Kentucky to northern California would likely see the most new cases.
I hope not. Late June days rarely come this nice around Wichita: mid-80s, a light teasing wind, wisps of cottony clouds speckling a powder blue sky.
Contrast this, for instance, with the last day of June in 1980. The mercury hit 110 that year, which is the hottest June day in the city’s history. It served as an early indication of one of the city’s most memorable heat waves, but I’ll write more about that later.
For now, savor June’s farewell.
The mercury is expected to reach 90 today, and Memorial Day’s still a week away yet. As early as that may seem, it’s a far cry from the earliest date for that temperature in Wichita history.
You’ll have to go all the way back to March for the earliest date to reach 90. On March 19, 1907, the thermometer reached 91.
Fret not, though: despite today’s toasty reading, forecasters say it doesn’t mean spring’s already history. Cooler temperatures are on tap for the rest of the week.
