Botanica Illuninations

Illuminations is Botanica's little Winter Fest.  The night we went, there was high pressure overhead so the smoke from the chiminea's was forced down and caused a very smoking evening.

Yeah, It's overfiltered.

There were Tornadoes in Kansas on Christmas Day, but All I Got Was this Squall Line

Santa!

Follow Santa on NORAD.

Winterfest Wichita, Kansas 2016

Odds and Ends at the Cosmosphere

I recently got the pleasure of teaching Solar Weather and Severe Weather to teachers at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas.

While there, the TIV had been left for the premier of Tornado Alley.

Storms 10/7/16

It was a chaotic week. First the storms coming through on Tuesday then a sudden increase of storms Thursday with tornado potential increasing on every Storm Prediction Center update.

With a cold front add dry line descending quickly into Wichita by that afternoon, there was an increasing chance for severe weather. Tornadoes were reported north of Wichita near Salina and SE of Wichita near Ark City.  For information on this check out the National Weather Service link:  http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes.

from http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes

Slowly storms began to fill in and had some severe potential before giving in and forming a squall line with below severe level winds.

At Woodlawn and K-254

Not sure what it was trying to organize.

360 degree panoramic

Storms 10/04/2016

Is second season starting early?  A cold front and dry line combo moved into the Wichita area with high winds, hail, and an area of rotation that quickly became rainwrapped in the dark and caused some fear that a tornado had touched down north of Wichita.  High winds caused damage to Maize, Bel Aire, and Valley Center areas and at one point left 8,000 without power.

Sunrise in Valley Center

Storms off to the west in Kingman Co.

Non rotating SCUD or scary looking clouds

inflow feeding the storm

The storm hitting Maize with high winds.  Look for the face in the clouds and the hand reaching out.