Though most storms lately have dealt with snow, meteorologists at the National Weather Service will be preparing residents for the next round of Mother Nature — tornadoes.
The National Weather Service (NWS) will be holding their annual Storm Spotter Training at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday March 3 at the Wellington High School Auditorium. The meeting is open to the public and everyone is encouraged to attend.
Programs are presented in all 26 counties covered by the NWS in Wichita every year as a refresher course for some and a basic all-round course for others.
“The most important part of the training is how to be safe in severe weather and whether you are dealing with tornadoes, hail or high winds, how to be safe,” said Meteorologist Robb Lawson.
Staying safe is key, but knowing what you are up against is also important, he said.
“[Participants will learn] storm structure as far as what to look for to identify storm features, possible tornado development, whether you are looking at a supercell or a squall line and then associated threats with that. So you’ll be able to identify threats and the features that go with that,”
“Everyone is going to be out in this type of weather, that’s why it’s open to everyone and not just storm spotters,” Lawson said.
The last deadly tornado to hit Sumner County was in 1955 when the Udall tornado went near Oxford before leveling the small town of Udall and killing 80 people and injuring 250. Tornadoes have regularly hit the county since with five tornadoes reported in 2009.
Kansas had a total of 103 tornadoes, that’s 43 above the average year. No fatalities were reported and the strongest tornado was rated an EF2 and occurred in Stafford County. June 15th was the busiest day last year with 21 tornadoes briefly touching down on Kansas soil, Lawson said.
The peak of tornadic activity will hit from April through June, Lawson. Tornadoes can hit at anytime, he said.
“They can happen any month,” Lawson said. “We just had one in January a couple years ago just north of Wichita,”
With the frequent number of tornadoes and never knowing when one could hit, it’s more important than ever to know what to do to stay safe.
“Based on the information they can learn in this class, it will help them to better understand and identify storms as they are building and know what storms are more dangerous than others and then also it will empower them to know what to do if a serious storm hits, how to protect themselves and possibly prevent themselves from being injured,” said Sumner County Emergency Management Director James Fair.
Lawson says colder weather may delay tornadoes this year, but it’s hard to tell when one might pop up.
“Just based on the pattern, it looks like it’s going to be a later year. Typically we usually get severe weather by the end of February or early March, small hail or something like that but it’s been colder than normal and colder longer than normal so it looks like it’s going to be a later starting year.” said Lawson.
