Spring is around the corner - and for Tornado Alley residents, that means "be prepared"

 I spent decades as a newspaper reporter and still do freelance pieces on occasion - including the one I'm sharing below for those who do not have a subscription to the paper in which it appeared. I'm doing it as a public service, since it includes information on safety and preparation for the possibility of severe weather. Prepare a safety plan that works for you...

Spring tornado forecast for Kansas seems eerily familiar

BY STAN FINGER EAGLE CORRESPONDENT

FEBRUARY 28, 2021 06:01 AM, 

UPDATED 35 MINUTES AGO

Duration 3:40

Timelapse video shows strength of Kansas EF-4 tornado

(FILE VIDEO) Timelapse video shows the development and strength of an EF-4 tornado that tore through Kansas on Tuesday, May 28, 2019. BY FLATLANDERS/@FLATLANDERSTV

While the recent record-shattering invasion of arctic air may be still fresh on many people’s minds, some meteorologists are taking a closer look at what spring will be like.

What they’re seeing is a bit unsettling: the atmospheric conditions across the northern hemisphere for this spring closely resembles 2007 and 2011 – years that produced rare EF5 tornadoes, the strongest on the Enhanced Fujita Scale used to measure the strength of twisters.

A record 216 tornadoes touched down from Canada to Texas on April 27, 2011, including four EF5s. The outbreak claimed 348 lives. A month later, another EF5 tornado swept through Joplin, Mo., killing 161 people and injuring more than 1,000 in the deadliest single tornado in the U.S. since records began officially being kept in 1950.

In Kansas, a tornado nearly 2 miles wide essentially wiped Greensburg off the map on the night of May 4, 2007, killing 11 people and injuring almost 70 others. The tornado was the first EF5 recorded under the revised Fujita Scale and the last tornado in the state to earn the scale’s highest rating.

That history is what makes some Kansas officials nervous about 2021.

“I’m definitely concerned about what this storm season has in store for us,” said Keri Korthals, emergency management director for Butler County, which was hit by the last F5 in Kansas prior to Greensburg, on April 26, 1991.

That tornado killed 17 people – 13 of them in the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park – and led to the creation of an emergency management department in Butler County.

“Historically in Kansas, it seems like our weather likes to lull us into complacency before bringing out the big sticks,” Korthals said in an email response to questions. “It gives us a string of mild seasons that make us forget how bad it can get, and then…”

Last year was astoundingly quiet for Kansas and Tornado Alley as a whole. Only 17 tornadoes touched down in the Sunflower State in 2020, the lowest total in more than four decades.

For the first time since official records began 70 years ago, not a single tornado touched down in the 26 counties of southeastern Kansas included in the warning area of the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service. Not only were there no tornadoes, there were no tornado watches issued by the Wichita office.

To put the sleepy 2020 in perspective, Kansas has averaged 94 tornadoes a year over the past decade and 89 over the past 30 years. The Sunflower State hadn’t logged such a low tornado total since 14 in 1976 and 16 in 1977.

“I’ve heard multiple people use the phrase ‘we’re so overdue,’” Korthals said. “And that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck a little bit, wondering if we’re to the ‘big stick’ year yet.”

The record-setting cold spell that began to finally ease last weekend “isn’t helping that prickly feeling,” she said.

“And given that we’re still in our COVID response phase, that makes it even more unsettling, since that adds an extra layer of difficulty to sheltering, responding and so on if we do have a bad season,” Korthals said.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

Despite the correlations to years that produced rare top-of-the-scale tornadoes, AccuWeather is not predicting an unusually active year for Kansas. Instead, just as in 2011, the southeastern U.S. is projected to see a surge in tornado totals.

High pressure linked to drought in the southwestern U.S. will spread into western Kansas this spring, pushing storm systems east of Kansas, said Paul Pastelok, a long-range forecaster for AccuWeather.

“There may not be a lot of precipitation for your area when the fronts come through,” Pastelok said in an email response to questions. “I am leaning toward Dixie Alley, rather than Tornado Alley, this spring. Moist air from the Gulf of Mexico may have a hard time consistently reaching back into the Plains this spring.”

A CAUTION AGAINST COMPLACENCY

But forecasters and emergency management officials caution against complacency in Kansas. All it would take is “one big one” to hit a populated area and make this year a bad one, said Jeff Hutton, warning coordination meteorologist for the Dodge City branch of the National Weather Service.

“I would bet it will be plenty active in Kansas as far as severe weather,” Hutton said in an email response to questions. “For the number of tornadoes? That will all be completely dependent on each individual severe weather day. There is no scientific skill in predicting that number.”

There was no shortage of strong thunderstorms in Kansas last year, Hutton said. What was missing were the final ingredients needed to initiate tornadoes.

Sedgwick County Emergency Management Director Julie Stimson urged residents to not take tornado season lightly.

“The thought of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is not on the forefront of many minds,” Stimson said in an e-mail response to questions. “With the recent cold weather and on-going pandemic, the thought of a tornado striking the area is an unnerving thought — exactly why we must begin preparing now.

“We have already seen major tornado events in the U.S. in the midst of the pandemic, demonstrating the urgency to prepare simultaneously to the threat of severe weather while continuing COVID precautions,” she said.

Kansas will observe Severe Weather Awareness Week this week, Stimson said, making this a good time to review what steps you’ll take in the event violent weather threatens.

This includes sorting out where to take shelter if you’re at work or school, updating your emergency supplies kit, and ensuring you have multiple ways of receiving emergency alert notifications — even during power outages.

HOW TO BE PREPARED

Now is a good time to review and safeguard important documents that can help start recovery right after a disaster:

• Review and update insurance policies
• Take photos of valuable belongings you may want to include in an insurance claim
• Create a list of medications, allergies and medical equipment
• Locate and safeguard birth certificates, passports and social security cards
• Have current digital photos of loved ones readily available
• Designate an out-of-town contact who might be able to help you reconnect with loved ones
• Have a reserve cell phone charger
• Create an emergency contact list.
• Stay informed on current weather forecasts and conditions through local media, social media, and the National Weather Service-Wichita office website: https://www.weather.gov/ict/.

• Because of COVID-19, stay current on advice and restrictions from your state and local public health authorities as it may affect your actions and available resources and facilities.

  If you do have to evacuate to an emergency shelter, protect yourself and others by

  • Practice social distancing from other people outside your household
  • Follow local shelter COVID 19 precautions: wash hands often, cover coughs and sneezes and follow mask-wearing policies.
  • Follow disaster shelter policies and procedures designed to protect everyone in the shelter, especially those who are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19, including older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions.
  • If you feel sick when you arrive at the shelter or start to feel sick while sheltering, tell shelter staff immediately

  Source: Sedgwick County Emergency Management

A dusty day in the Great Plains

Strong winds and dry conditions have created blinding dust storms in Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma today.

I-35 just south of the Kansas border has been shut down after a multi-vehicle pile-up. I'm hearing there are injuries and perhaps even a death.

Cognizant of the wind threat today, and recognizing the wind would be worse this afternoon and evening, I returned to Wichita from the farm this morning. Fields were already blowing by 9 a.m., but highways weren't obscured for more than a second at worst.

Things had deteriorated significantly by the time my brother was driving back late this afternoon. He said the dust had dropped visibility to zero several times on his drive home, and he still had another 60 miles to go.

Days like today offer hints of life during the Dust Bowl, and always remind me of this classic song:

It's been five years now since a massive tornado obliterated Greensburg, Kansas....

....this raw video shot by Lanny Dean that night - May 4, 2007 - shows the tornado's development and monstrous size. A caution for viewers - there's some adult language on it, and I'm not surprised given the gravity of what was unfolding.

A touch of breeze in Kansas today

Folks who choose to fly a kite in Kansas today would be wise to take a passport.

As I was driving east on Central from City Hall late this morning, dust was roaring north on Broadway so thick it looked like a dirty veil soaring 20 feet high. I could see farther east, or I would have stopped and called the newsroom with a news flash.

Trash swirled in the eddies of Wichita's humble structure spires. People bent into the wind, at times seeming to walk in place if they were going against gales that tickled 50 miles an hour.

Even inside the newsroom, an open door produced a howl straight from an Edgar Allan Poe story. It was as if the building were protesting the wind's sullen mood.

And if you were out in Wichita's central corridor, then March truly seemed to be roaring like a lion.

"It's spring in Kansas," a meteorologist told me.

And she was flexing her muscles a bit today.....

History that touches close to home

Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the Clutter murders. The brutal slaying of a farm family on a quiet Saturday night in November 1959 stunned all of Kansas and spawned "In Cold Blood," Truman Capote's gripping mix of fact and fiction that is hailed as a literary masterpiece.

The tragedy was especially painful for my Aunt Rosemary, Mom's older sister, who lived in Garden City and babysat the Clutter children when they were young. The deaths of the Clutter clan cut her deeply, and bringing it up caused her anger and pain even decades later.

She loathed Capote for fictionalizing the incident and, in her mind, glorifying the killers by paying so much attention to them. In fact, she hated any media attention paid to the case, feeling like it victimized the family - and those who loved them - all over again.

I wasn't born when the Clutters were killed. My next-oldest sibling, Trish, was only 2 months old at the time.

But when I learned of the case and read the book, I was struck by the same fact that undoubtedly unsettled folks everywhere: that no place is immune to the reach of evil.

A night of near misses - and one that didn't

I found myself watching an episode of "Storm Chasers" on the Discovery Channel tonight. The series follows groups of storm chasers through spring in Tornado Alley...some trying to gather scientific data that will help researchers and meteorologists better understand tornadoes and the conditions that create them......and some just trying to capture video and photos that will draw large numbers of hits to their Web sites.

This particular episode struck close to home, because it was in late May in Kansas last year. The Friday before Memorial Day, when tornadoes touched down awfully close to Quinter - the small town next to I-70 in northwest Kansas where my oldest brother, Don, lives. I remember blogging about those tornadoes - one of which hovered in the sky and passed over I-70 and Quinter before finally touching down north of town. Talk about a close call....

Later that night, a tornado touched down in Kiowa County and seemed headed right for Greensburg...which had been decimated by an F5 tornado just the year before. Thankfully, it fell apart prior to reaching Greensburg.

Hearing the tornado sirens go off in the wrecked town that Greensburg largely remained was particularly chilling. As threatening as the clouds appeared, the poor souls of Greensburg had to be shaken to the core as those sirens blared, given what they had been through the previous May.

I was glad to see the researchers check out farm damage north of Quinter the next morning, to remind viewers of what tornadoes can do. There was something important missing from the episode, however: perhaps 50 miles east of Greensburg, on that stormy Friday night, a couple from Colorado was struck and killed by a tornado as they drove east toward Wichita. Driving through a storm in the dark, they probably never knew what hit them.

It would have been wise to mention the fatalities, to remind viewers what can happen when tornadoes strike.

Reflections on the wind

I hadn't been to the family farm since Christmas, so when I went out there last week I wanted a first-hand look at what chores had been done - and what work still begged our attention.

Steve, my twin, had done a very good job of clearing brush down behind the shed along the creek that meanders through our homestead. I walked to the Sawmill Creek to see how much water was in it following what sounded like a dry winter.

Not only was there no water in the creek, the bed was so dry the dirt was like powder. I crossed to the south bank and began walking along the trees that had grown up along the edge. A biting south wind slapped my face as I walked, sending a shudder down my spine.

I spotted some trails carved into the prairie next to the trees, and just out of curiosity I began following one to see where it would take me. The ruts were deep and vertical, telling me they had been gouged out by hooves --- most likely deer, since we no longer have cattle or horses on the place.

The ruts carried me close to the water's edge - if there had been water in the creek, that is - and also cut the strong south wind to a teasing whisper. Suddenly, the day seemed transformed. Protected from the worst of the wind, the day seemed pleasant: sunny, with just a touch of breeze.

As the path curled up the slope and away from the trees and the creek bed, the forceful wind made its presence known once again. I was reminded of something my oldest sister, Mary, said as we'd braved a harsh east wind the evening before while checking out the west end of the creek and the small bridges spanning it so an irrigation pivot system could cross.

Even as the wind made us quicken our pace and shield our faces (with her granddaughter tucked inside layers of clothing like a kid in a kangaroo's pouch), she talked about how much she missed the wind when she moved to northwest Missouri. The wind, the prairie, the sky. She talked about how the wind could define a day with its strength, shifting directions, and whimsical whirls. She went on about the subtle beauty of the prairie and how she loved feeling grounded by the soil. And she loved how the undulating prairie gave proper homage to the vastness of the skies, as if it realized what a remarkable stage the heavens could be - whether it's sunrise or sunset, approaching storms or the grandeur of the stars at night.

For true people of the prairie, trees and mountains feel confining. It's as if the sky becomes their compass (as it was for centuries of seafarers), and without it they feel adrift.

The deer tracks dipped down to the creek again, and as I followed them the wind spun around to blow again from the east. Down in the trees, following an east-west stretch of the creek, it was as if there was no wind at all.

By the time I emerged again from the woods, the wind was out of the south again. For me, a south wind symbolizes spring and summer in Kansas. It carries the moisture that feeds the spring storms, as well as the dry air that cures the maturing wheat in the nation's bread basket as summer arrives.

Those characteristics capture the dichotomy that is a Kansas wind. It's such an integral part of what defines the state, at times giving and at times taking away. Even as I shivered at times on that walk in the woods, I remembered all those simmering summer days on this land when it was the wind that offered blessed relief from the heat.

This joke made me chuckle

Three men married wives from different states.

The first man married a woman from Michigan . He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.

The second man married a woman from Missouri . He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from Kansas. He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot food on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.