A group of us dressed as various characters from the movie. Let’s just say it was an itchy costume, because I used real straw.

I do remember one woman coming as the sun one year, though it was more like the smiling sun we used to see on cereal boxes, not something meteorologically accurate.

Has anyone dressed as a snowflake or a tornado or a lightning bolt? I’d like to hear about it. And send a photo, if you feel daring….

Films about weather or with weather as a major component in the plot line will be shown on the next four Friday nights.

First up? “The Perfect Storm.”

Seems appropriate, doesn’t it? Other offerings will include the documentary “March of the Penguins,” the thriller “Deep Blue Sea” and “Misery,” for which Kathy Bates won an Academy Award.

While the movies are being shown, forecasts will continue to be offered via a crawl line at the bottom of the screen.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Weather Channel showing flicks – on Friday or any other day of the week. What happens if there’s a major early winter storm marching through the Great Plains or hammering the Northeast on a Friday night? Do they break away from the movie for extended periods, much like local stations do during severe weather? Will folks in Florida be pleased to have their movie disrupted by reports of a blizzard in the Dakotas?

What do you think about this move? And what films would you choose if you were the programming director?

But the new home is just a few blocks from WeatherData’s current location at the Farm Credit Building, 245 N. Waco. The new offices will be in the 100 block of North Broadway, Smith said.

This is the third time WeatherData has outgrown its offices. WeatherData has been at the Farm Credit Building since 1994.

WeatherData has been a subsidiary of AccuWeather since 2006.

It mentions Dodge City, and you’ll see why.

Mike Prager of the Spokane Spokesman-Review sent this:

“All of the fishing folks in this region are excited about a big run of salmon and steelhead on the Columbia River this summer. Here is a link to the fish cam at Bonneville Dam to the east of Portland. The smaller, sleeker ones are steelhead. The bigger ones are likely chinook (or kings).”

He went on to say that when he went fishing off the mouth of “the Big C,” or Columbia River, “and the coho (silver salmon) were crazy everywhere. Lots of birds, including pelicans, and a few dolphins and gray whales. The inland weather has been hot and mostly dry. We got some rain last week to dampen the fire threat. Fire season hasn’t been too bad. No one hit by lightning here, but we did get some small tornadoes, outflow winds and funnel clouds earlier in the season.”

Weather in music seems to cross genres effortlessly. Consider Dan Fogelberg’s classic “Same Old Auld Lang Syne” or the Allman Brothers’ “Bad Rain” or the Eurythmics’ “Here Comes the Rain Again” — or even The Beatles and “Here Comes the Sun.”

What are some of your favorite songs that feature weather as a key component of the story line?

The two victims in Hutchinson declined transport to the hospital, while the boy in Wichita was taken to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus for treatment. He has since been released.

Police said the boy ran into his apartment and told his mother he couldn’t feel his legs. He had been playing outside at about 8:45 p.m. when a bolt struck nearby and the current passed through the pavement and into his legs.

I wasn’t surprised to learn of the lightning strikes. I went out to dinner, then to a friend’s house for a while Monday night. I watched the storms intensify on the drive from the restaurant to the house not far from KAKE. In just a few minutes lightning went from an occasional flicker to powerful cloud-to-ground bolts. I jogged from the street to the door, and then back out to the car when it was time to leave a little more than an hour later.

I told a friend on my cell phone that I almost didn’t need my headlights on for the drive home because the lightning was so steady and so bright. A woman was strolling casually across my complex’s parking lot when I pulled in at about 8:45 p.m., and I resisted the temptation to roll down my window and tell her to take shelter before lightning hit her.

That was right about the time the lightning struck the parking lot near Harry and Rock Road, injuring the 15-year-old boy. Andrew Sayler, a friend of mine who lives in far east Wichita, sent me several lightning photos he shot from his house last night. They’re pretty compelling.

Monday’s victims are lucky: they survived to talk about their experiences. So far this year, 27 people around the U.S. and Puerto Rico have been killed by lightning – including one in Kansas.

Forecasters confess to me they’re frustrated that people don’t seem to take lightning seriously. Perhaps it’s because they think they can’t possibly be hit by a lightning bolt. But a lightning expert told me and other journalists at the National Press Foundation’s “Understanding Violent Weather” conference in Norman, Okla., that the average person stands a far better chance of being hit by lightning than ever winning a lottery.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for taking lightning more seriously comes from Dick Elder, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service’s Wichita office. He said the odds quoted about lightning strikes are misleading because they factor in clear, sunny days – not just stormy ones. When there’s a thunderstorm rolling through the area, he said, our chances of being hit by a bolt are far better than people realize.

Just ask the mother and son in Hutchinson – or the teenage boy who was playing in the parking lot Monday night.

I’ve been taking a few days off, and thought this would be a good time to share a photo of a summer sunset shot by Kenny Felt in southeast Kansas.

When he sent this photo to me, Kenny offered one simple question:
“Is there anything better than a Midwest sunset?”

Not that broiling Wichita or most of Kansas will have to worry about thunderstorms for the next several days.

But lightning is dangerous: 15 people have been killed by strikes so far this year, including 45-year-old Troy Gentzler of Lawrence, who was struck while riding his motorcycle in northeast Kansas on April 25.

Lightning deaths have been recorded in 12 different states so far this year, including two each in Florida, Texas and California. Men have accounted for 80% of the fatalities. That’s no surprise, lightning experts have told me, because men are more aggressive when it comes to taking risks.

Three of the people killed were walking, five were engaged in fishing, camping or other outdoor sports, and four were engaged in yard work.

People joke about the long odds of being hit by lightning – but you have a much, much better chance of being struck by a bolt than winning virtually any lottery.

Only 10 percent of those hit by lightning are killed – but it’s not unusual for survivors to endure some degree of pain or disability that lingers for the rest of their lives.

That’s why it’s wise to take no chances with lightning.