Local Weather

luv2cook wrote:

I personally think the whole thing is getting out of hand.

In a way. The increased awareness is good, but there are problems with all the self proclaimed experts out there. Legit storm spotters don't intentionally put themselves in the path. The object is to observe safely when possible and give public warning. I've seen too many tours, glory/fame hunters, and party time chasers go down roads with no escape routes, and drive with no regard to other traffic or emergency services.

Pretty nice rain here... .30 in the Kuhn rain guage

Huh... we never got the predicted rain yesterday. So far, this morning, the sky is clear and humidity is low-ish (for eastern ks). I fear we'll get hit with it later today.

Blackie Kuhn wrote:

Pretty nice rain here... .30 in the Kuhn rain guage

Amounts varied widely here. I think the high winds affected readings, especially where a tree or building was upwind of the gauge. Mine showed .60 others were from .25 to .75 Radar estmates, which I've found to be accurate, show as much as 2.5" between Yocemento and Antonino.

.50 in south Hays.

.45 after last nite and looks like another toad strangler comin at us

Starting to sound like a gun range...

Just spent an hour and a half in the basement. Christ Im getting too old for this shit.

any damage to your area?

No serious damage reported yet. Some tree damage and minor flooding. Tornado touchdowns South of Ellis and Yocemento but they were brief.

Glad y'all survived! We got nothin' over here.

Only .75 in the Kuhn rain guage this morning.. I thought there would be more as hard as it rained.

Ratzilla wrote:

No serious damage reported yet. Some tree damage and minor flooding. Tornado touchdowns South of Ellis and Yocemento but they were brief.

My cousin lives otu there by Antonino and she told me they had a bunch of hail damage and that the wheat was looking bad out that way.

Didn't mean to mislead. When I think of storm damage I'm usually thinking of tornado touchdowns, large hail, flooding, and severe level winds. I'm sure all the hail and rain I saw did crop damage. Radar estimates on rainfall were over 3" in a few places and hail was generally small but heavy in places and driven by moderate (35-40 mph) winds. I'm sure there was likely unreported damage too. Usually is.

Blackie Kuhn wrote:

Only .75 in the Kuhn rain guage this morning.. I thought there would be more as hard as it rained.

That's what I showed too. I don't trust gauges if there's alot of wind though. I remember a downpour once with high winds that caused minor flooding, yet only showed .25 in the gauge. Horizontal winds blew most of the rain right past it.

I got a shitload of rain

Beautiful night tonight took a nice walk, looking forward to more!!

Was a beautiful day in the neighborhood... need more like today.

I agree suzy, long time coming but finally here. Gooey and humid but perfect night to ride motorcycles all night and sleep all day. Aw the good old bad days/daze.

Looks like a fare patch of rain on the way,

I bet it splits in half and goes around the Hace area

Well Ellis got a whippin today. Whether abnormally strong downbursts or tornado I'd estmate wind speeds in excess of 100 MPH. A common thunderstorm doesn't blow down chain link fence, carry big round bales up to half a mile, knock over tombstones, send a semi with a heavy trailer flying, or bend flagpoles.

Around that time I was watching Dodge radar pretty closely. Switched over to wind velocity mode frequently. Saw a distinct green spot amongst a red background. It appeared to be a mile or two east of Ellis when I first noticed it. The short range indicated a small hook echo in the same area. Seems to back up your thoughts on the matter.

Looks like I made a bad call early in the game.I did get 2.25 inches in the Kuhn rain guage though.

Justoo wrote:

Around that time I was watching Dodge radar pretty closely. Switched over to wind velocity mode frequently. Saw a distinct green spot amongst a red background. It appeared to be a mile or two east of Ellis when I first noticed it. The short range indicated a small hook echo in the same area. Seems to back up your thoughts on the matter.

Wonder why the guy from the weather service never mentioned that? I think it was possibly a combination of short tornado touchdowns, maybe what's called "gustnadoes", and microbursts. Guy from the weather service says just microbursts.

Gustnadoes commonly happen along the front or flanks of storms with heavy cool outflow winds mixing with warmer air. They may be easily missed by radars because they aren't always very high up in the storm, but are created by the high winds of outflow closer to ground. A gust front tornado isn't a true tornado, but a gustnado can still have winds equal to an F1 or maybe even weak F2 tornado.

Personally, I like the "TORRO" scale of tornadic damage more than the so called enhanced Fujita because TORRO breaks it down to 10 easily understood damage levels. The worst damage in this case would be T3 or T4. The TORRO is mostly used in Europe and considered outdated, but the Enhanced Fujita is very confusing at times and IMO was never intended for the general public to understand. First you have to take wind speeds and then compare the types of structures, blah blah blah. I really don't like the EF ratings. Just tell us how hard the friggin wind blew and be done with it.

One thing the weather service and locals agree on is that winds here were 100 MPH or greater.

how many microburst??

jessks75 wrote:

how many microburst??

A microburst can be a couple miles long, or very small. It's actually windshear from a storm that drops straight down, which is why it's also called a downdraft or downburst, and then it spreads fast upon hitting ground. It's that outward spread that does the damage and may cause small spin up tornadoes. How many a storm might produce is something I can't say I know.

Cool photo of double gustnadoes formed during a downburst.

I can't sllep cuz suzy's sending her storm my way! Looks like they're getting a nasty round of weather there. Lots of rain, lightning and thunder here. But the main line of storms aren't here yet!

It has been raining hard here in Gardner for the past 2 hours. I'm just pissed because the we keep losing satellite signal.

Most of Ellis Co. lucked out. Only a small area in the NW got any wind or hail damage. Guess Southern/Central Rooks got hammered by bigger hail though. Looks like one big squall line is impacting the entire Eastern KS border now. Already hit KC. Probably be some wind damage.

Wow, radar estimates in some places 4 to 6 inches including the South side of the KC area. And a huge area from Great Bend to Salina to Concordia with 2 1/2 to 5 inch amounts. Looks like the Topeka area got an average of 2 to 3. What's bad is some of the places between Topeka and KC are going to get plenty more.

Pretty good shower here tonite. .50 in the Kuhn rain guage

.70 here.

Ratzilla wrote:

Most of Ellis Co. lucked out. Only a small area in the NW got any wind or hail damage. Guess Southern/Central Rooks got hammered by bigger hail though. Looks like one big squall line is impacting the entire Eastern KS border now. Already hit KC. Probably be some wind damage.

Wow, radar estimates in some places 4 to 6 inches including the South side of the KC area. And a huge area from Great Bend to Salina to Concordia with 2 1/2 to 5 inch amounts. Looks like the Topeka area got an average of 2 to 3. What's bad is some of the places between Topeka and KC are going to get plenty more.

Lawrence and Manhattan were already flooded last night. This is going to be way too much.

As for Topeka, maybe the hard rain will clean the place up a little.

We have had close to 10 inches of rain here in the past 2 weeks. We had a nice storm come through here last night that dumped almost 2 inches of rain, it was nice looking at the river of water flowing across the street from someone's backyard.

Hail and repeated winds of 50+ mph went through here tonight in a slow moving storm. Sounds like there was flooding in the SW part of Trego and a couple other counties from a storm that just sit and dumped on them for 3 hours.

Radar estimates in that area indicated more than 12". That's all the higher Goodland radar goes. Dodges radar only goes to 10"

My personal guess is 18" - 24" in a small area near where Ness, Lane, Gove And Trego counties meet. Might actually make it to Cedar Bluff since it was all in the Smokey valley.

Rather see it in Cedar Bluff than one of the towns. How are you getting your calculation of 18+ justoo?

Observation and assumption.

This particular storm popped up on the radar about 5 pm. It never moved. It just sat in one place and poured until a little after 9 pm. I became fascinated with this storm early on because it was showing heavy rainfall rates from nearly the moment it began and I wondered if it would wander to the ENE towards Hays.
Let's break this storm into 5 time segments to make a short story long.

Segment 1 - The Birth


This is a one-half hour segment, 5:00-5:30. Approximately.

Checked the storm total and the one-hour total frequently during this span. They agreed with each other on amounts consistently. After 30 minutes they both showed 3".
Total so far - 3"

Segment 2 - Puberty - Young Adult

5:30 - 6:30

The one hour totals ranged up to 6" near the end of this hour. The storm total indicated 8"or more, but less than 10" in some small spots.

Total so far - 8"-10"

tornado watch... Ellis ...Russell .... Rooks..... Trego.... until 11 pm Saturday June 19 2010

Segment 3 - Strong Adult

6:30 - 7:30

The one hour totals indicated more than 6" most of this hour in spots. Near the end it was indicating 8" per hour. This gauge does not show rainfall amounts greater than this. If it were raining at a rate of 12" per hour it would still only indicate a rate of more than 8".

The storm total showed an area that had received 10" or more shortly into this segment . This area grew in size as the time passed. This gauge maxes out at 10". Anything above that is speculation.

Total during this period - No less than 6" and perhaps as much as 10".

Total so far - 14" - 20"

Segment 4 - Post Middle Age

7:30 - 8:30

The one hour total stayed at the 8" or greater rate for a short while but was at the rate of 6" per hour most of the hour. Near the end of the segment it had fallen to a rate of 3" per hour.

The storm total showed a growing area of 10" or more.

Total during this period - 4" to perhaps 7"

Total so far 18" - 27"

Segment 5 - The Death.

8:30 - 9:30

The one hour total soon fell to 2" but never dropped below that until it died as suddenly as it was born.

The storm total showed an area that was 12 - 15 miles long (E-W) and 4 - 6 mile wide (N-S) that was 10" or more.

Total during this segment - up to 2"

Storm total 18" - 29" in localized spots.

I'd be interested to know if anyone had a tall gauge and measured it. The highest hourly rainfall figure in the world was 12.0" recorded in Holt, Missouri on June 22 1907. The storms tonight showed 12 to 15 inches on radar near Stockton. Some Christian MC riders were in Walmart earlier and told me 3 or 4 riders went down in the Stockton area trying to ride through the storms.

Hey NB, where abouts up there got the baseball size hail?

no where near Hoxie that I heard. We had quarter sized here at the house - but didnt' hear any bigger.

nobodysbusiness wrote:

no where near Hoxie that I heard. We had quarter sized here at the house - but didnt' hear any bigger.

Channel 2 weatherman said they had a report of baseball size hail near Hoxie.

hmm - only heard quarter sized on the scanner. I dunno!