Sedgwick County Emergency Management has postponed tonight’s scheduled Severe Weather Safety class in Bentley.
The class has been pushed back to March 26. The class will be at 6:30 p.m. in Bentley’s city building.
Wednesday’s class at Eastborough City Hall is expected to go forward as scheduled, said Cody Charvat, training and exercise officer for the emergency management office.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s seven weather satellites don’t just collect images and data valuable for forecasting weather.
They also carry instruments that can detect distress signals from emergency beacons carried by downed pilots, shipwrecked boaters and stranded hikers. The satellites, which are part of the international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System, can pinpoint the distress signal’s location to within 100 yards, said Chris O’Connors, program manager for NOAA SARSAT, in a prepared statement.
More than 250 people were rescued in 2012: 182 from the water, 22 from aviation incidents and 59 from land events. Alaska had the most rescues with 45. There were 38 in North Carolina and 25 in Florida.
Another 14 people were rescued from the tall ship HMS Bounty when it was caught in waves more than 200 miles off the North Carolina coast.
Since the program was started in 1982, Cospas-Sarsat has been credited with supporting more than 30,000 rescues worldwide, including 6,999 in the United States and its surrounding waters.
The October 80s continue for the Wichita area today – and the gusty south winds return for an encore as well.
Highs should reach the low to mid-80s for each of the next few days in the metropolitan area, forecasters say. Skies should be mostly sunny today, with south winds reaching 25 miles an hour in gusts.
Overnight lows will only drop to the upper 60s – which is only a few degrees cooler than the typical highs this time of year.
Tuesday is likely to be even warmer than today, forecasters say, with partly cloudy skies and more gusty south winds. Temperatures should stay at or above normal for most of the week until a cold front sends temperatures plunging on Friday.
For more information on current conditions, go to our weather page.
Police say a Tulsa woman missing since Saturday has been found alive in a deep freezer, where she apparently hid during severe storms over the weekend, the Associated Press reported.
Tulsa police officer Jillian Roberson said the 59-year-old woman was found Wednesday morning after worried relatives went to the woman’s apartment complex in search of her. She was transported with frostbite on her legs to a Tulsa hospital, where she is listed in fair condition.
Authorities believe the woman climbed into the freezer to seek shelter during last week’s round of severe storms that hit the Tulsa area, but couldn’t get out once the storms had passed, Roberson said.
Authorities have ruled out foul play.
While 2012 trails last year’s record-setting total of triple-digit temperatures by some distance, the two years combined have already broken the mark for most 100s in back-to-back summers.
The 79 100s of 2011 and 2012 surpasses the old mark of 72 100s set in 1936 and 1937, according to data provided by AccuWeather. Much of that total comes from the 53 100s in 2011.
Expect the 2012 total to climb quickly this week, but if AccuWeather’s long-range forecast for August proves accurate there will be no assault on the record for most 100s in a summer.
The triple digits return to Wichita and much of Kansas today.
Forecasters say highs will hit 100 today, with south winds in the teens and gusting to nearly 25 miles an hour under sunny skies. Overnight lows will drop only to the mid-70s under mostly clear skies, and Wednesday looks even hotter.
Highs are expected to climb to 102 in Wichita, forecasters say, with sunny skies and more south winds in the teens. Gusts may reach 20 miles an hour, and may help keep ozone readings in Wichita from reaching levels that violate federal limits.
For more information on current conditions, go to our weather page.
Civil defense sirens that sounded across Oahu even though there was no emergency were inadvertently activated from Nebraska, according to the Associated Press.
Hawaii Civil Defense spokeswoman Kelly Kunishige said eight sirens accidentally went off early Thursday because of an engineer doing upgrade work in Nebraska.
Illinois-based Federal Signal has been contracted to do modernization work for Hawaii’s more than 300 sirens across the islands. The state asked the contractor to do some checks, but after doing so, Hawaii’s siren protocols were not removed from the system, allowing some to be activated.
Kunishige says the project will allow sirens to be activated by satellite or cell phone in case radios are down.
The sirens are used during emergencies such as tsunamis.
Tsunami waves struck Hawaii in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake last year.
Prince Charles gave the weather forecast for Scotland today for the BBC, and pulled it off with aplomb – and a bit of humor.
It just goes to show there’s a bit of a weather geek in all of us.
The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for Sedgwick County until 10:15 p.m. Take shelter now.
Author and storm chaser Jenna Blum was tracking storms Monday in central Kansas when she took a photograph of what she thought was a collapsing storm.
It wasn’t until she looked at the image later that she noticed the unique shape of the clouds.
Blum shot it near Greensburg, so she’s calling it “The Angel of Greensburg.” Considering how powerful the tornado was that wiped the small town off the map five years ago next month, the fact that only 11 people died makes it easy for folks to believe divine forces were at work indeed.