I noticed the 7-day forecast for Wichita could essentially be summed up in three words: “Sunny and hot.”
That should come as no surprise to longtime residents. July is the sunniest month of the year in Wichita, according to data on Weather.com. The sun shines 76% of the time in Wichita in July, and 75% of the time in August. No other month is in the 70s.
You won’t be surprised to learn that the sun shines least during November, December and January - but even then it’s at least 57% of the time.
This year has not seen a distinct decline in the amount of sunshine, despite record-setting rainfall this spring. In fact, January saw the sun shine 69% of the time - an 11% increase over the month’s average - and May and June also saw the sun shine more than normal, according to the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service.
This past month was the coolest April in 11 years for the continental United States, and fell into the lowest quarter of all Aprils based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.
The average April temperature, 51 degrees F, was one degree below the 20th century mean - ranking it the 29th coolest April on record in the U.S.
The average temperature in Wichita was 53.9, 1.4 degrees below average. That’s the third straight month the average temperature was below normal here.
It’s been a cool spring in Kansas - and if you don’t want to take our word for it, believe the wheat.
Only about 19 percent of the state’s wheat crop has now headed, according to the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service. That’s well below the 61 percent average for this late in the season.
Not surprisingly, the crop’s condition is suffering somewhat. The agency rates 56 percent of the crop as fair, poor or very poor, and only 44 percent as good or excellent.
It’s fairly common knowledge that meteorologists use Doppler radar to track the movement of various forms of precipitation.
But the NEXRAD Doppler records everything that is in the air space, and U.S. Geological Survey wildlife biologist Rick Sojda hopes to use the radar to track the migratory patterns of birds. He’s working with a Montana State University graduate student to develop an algorithm that could detect and track birds.
While the work is still in its early stages, it’s “showing great promise,” said Sojda, who is based at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman, Mont.
“The thing that’s driving most of it in the near term is the siting of wind turbines,” he said.
Officials don’t want to install wind turbines along migration paths because that could lead to numerous birds being killed and wind turbines being damaged.
“We have some idea of where those key areas would be, but at the same token we don’t have any quantitative data over the last 10 to 15 years,” he said.
When turbine locations are chosen, “we want to have some data behind it,” he said.