Record Breaking Cold for April

Saturday marked the the 1st time I've ever mowed the lawn wearing thermals, a winter hat and gloves. Unseasonably cold ... even record-breaking cold for this time of year. We haven't been above 32° for almost a week. Even are hardy garden plants like peas and lettuce couldn't survive temperatures that sank to 16° over the weekend. The hummingbird feeder looks like a frozen popcycle and the dog is leery about going out. At least it hasn't snowed again ... yet.

Technology & Severe Weather

With severe weather knocking at our door this week, we took advantage of a sale at the Tonganoxie City Office on a Midland weather radio. Equipped with S.A.M.E. technology, the radio will pick up any weather alerts and warnings for our programmed area. In other words, when a weather watch or warning is issued for Leavenworth County, the radio will sound an alarm followed by the warning. It works too ... we got our first weather alert last night with a Flash Flood warning after we had received 1.60" of rain in just a couple of hours. I know that it was 1.60" of rain thanks to our new wireless rain gauge. Technology and severe weather - it's a beautiful combination.

Was That Wind Speed For Real?

There's been a threat of severe weather all week but nothing but a few selected good soakings to mention thus far. A local Tonganoxie home weather station did report a sudden wind gust though at 250 mph. Surely this must have been a fluke ... or that of one really, really powerful nearby sneeze.

Wind Chill Over 40°?

Mid 50's all week with a wind out of the north. I was curious to see what the wind chill was as we spent a lot of time working outside this week but I learned from the National Weather Service that wind chill doesn't exist above 40°! I'll have to remember that. We're expecting rain showers off-and-on all week ... glad we got the grass planted.

Springtime in the Air

Spring is in the air ... at least the birds are in all their variety. We spent most of the day Saturday working in the yard and enjoying their songs and this beautiful time of the year! The trees are still yet to show their leaves but the crocuses came up and are in bloom. Forecasted highs this week put the Kansas area in the upper 70's! Should be some great Springtime weather considering that our average high for this time of year is 52°.

March Roars In Like a Lion!

"Weather" it's the start of the traditional severe weather season or the fact that March is coming in like a lion, I thought this would be a great opportunity to create an online journal of the fascinating weather that we experience in our backyard here in the Heartland (aka "Tornado Alley").

... and what a better way to start it off than with a fascinating evening of storms on Wednesday night! Most of the day was clear and beautiful with springlike weather in the 60's ... but by the time evening rolled around, mountains of clouds started appearing to the south over the cornfields. Over the course of the next few hours, thunderstorm and tornado warnings appeared all over the area. In Ottawa (about forty miles south of us) there were three tornadoes that merged into one! Fascinating! By 9:00 pm there were six counties in the southern area of the television viewing area (all of which had cut into their regular shows) that had tornado warnings. The KC metro area itself reported nickel and quarter size hail. Ouch! As for us ... it was a quiet evening. We'll see what happens overnight.

RED: Tornado Warnings
YELLOW: Thunderstorm Warnings
GREEN: Flood Warnings

Articles from Wednesday's storms:
Massive Storm Spawns Tornadoes: CNN
Storms Bring Twisters, Hail & Flooding: Kansas City Star