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Severe Weather and Flash Flooding Threat Continues in the Central and Southern Plains; Heavy Mountain Snow in the Intermountain West

Heavy rain and severe weather will continue across the central and southern Plains through the weekend. Tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds and flash flooding will be the primary threats. Heavy mountain snow will push into the Intermountain West and portions of the central Rockies. Snow will linger into Monday across the central and southern Rockies. Read More >

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Preparedness and Safety Resources

Several .pdf files - Download Adobe Reader

In times of hazardous events and disasters, too often people are not prepared resulting in an even larger disaster. There are some steps you can take to be better prepared in case a hazardous event or disaster occurs in your region. Take the time to visit some of the following resources and get you and your family ready for the next major storm. The FEMA "Are You Ready" book is a comprehensive guide on being prepared. You can order your own copy by calling 1-800-480-2520 and selecting option 1.

Preparedness:

Winter Storms: 

Severe Thunderstorms:

Lightning:

Extreme Heat:

Extreme Cold:

 

Flooding and Flash Flooding:

 

 

Drought:

 

 

Ultraviolet Radiation:

 

 

Resources for Children:

 

 

Other Resources:

 

 

NOAA WEATHER RADIO

 “The Voice of the National Weather Service”

NOAA Weather Radio is the fastest and most reliable way to receive severe weather watches, warnings and advisories. Weather Radio is broadcast direct from each National Weather Service office serving Kansas through a network of 25 special frequency transmitters.  Many radio and TV broadcasters rely on weather radio to receive Emergency Alert System (EAS) information for warnings, watches and other critical information.  For the individual, newer type radio receivers with the S.A.M.E. technology can be programmed to only alert for pre-selected counties.  In addition, routine 7 day forecasts, wind chill readings, weather summaries, river stages and much more data are available on weather radio 24/7 direct from the National Weather Service.

 The All Hazards feature of the radio means that critical information such as evacuations, chemical spills, nuclear releases, toxic fumes etc from local county emergency management, law enforcement and others will be relayed on NOAA Weather Radio. In 2004, NOAA Weather Radio began relaying AMBER Alerts, a child abduction recovery program, issued by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

The main NOAA Weather Radio page can be found here.

 The map below shows the latest NOAA Weather Radio coverage in Kansas . More in-depth information including county specific codes for S.A.M.E. receivers can be found at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/CntyCov/nwrKS.htm

 

Southwest Kansas Skywarn


             Training and Safety Information


Severe Weather Safety Guide

These links are courtesy of the National Weather Service Office in Norman, OK.

Severe Weather Safety Guide
Spotters Field Guide

 



 

Local Products
Regional Products


National Products

Southwest Kansas
Fire Weather Information



Full Fire Weather Planning Forecast

(issued every morning by 6 am then updated as needed during the day)


SPC Day 1 Fire Outlook

SPC Day 1 Fire Weather Outlook
 SPC Day 2 Fire Outlook

SPC Day 2 Fire Weather
SPC Experimental Day 3-8 Outlook
Experimental Day 3-8 Fire Weather Outlook

Printer Friendly Version of Fire Weather Outlooks Map and Discussion

Please note: these products are issued by the NWS Storm Prediction Center and are not updated routinely.

NWS GLD Fire Weather

 Today's Weather Trivia

Today's Date is Saturday November 2, 2024...\n ON... Nov 2, 1946 A heavy wet snow began to cover the Southern Rockies. Up to three feet of snow blanketed the mountains of New Mexico, and a 31 inch snow at Denver CO caused roofs to collapse.

 

Weather Trivia by month

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN
JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

If you enjoyed today's weather trivia, you may also like....

  • Also from NOAA's history site - Stories and Tales of the early Weather Service includes: personal accounts of lives in the Weather Service, war tales, stories of experiences in violent weather phenomena, technological tales, and an account of NOAA in the space age.

 

 

 

   
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short Fuse Composite Charts
objective meso-analysis using hourly FSL LAPS analysis grids and FSL/NWS GFE software

 
Short Fuse Composite chart 1
Chart #1:  Surface-based Moisture Convergence, Warm Theta Advection, Theta-E
Mouseover links to view previous hours
Short Fuse Composite chart 2
Chart #2:  Surface-based CAPE, Low Level Lapse Rate (0-2.5km AGL)

 

  • LAPS/GFE Short Fuse Composite "Threat Area" (critical threshold values will be devloped in the future upon testing this spring)
    • Within the maximum of surface moisture convergence
    • Immediately downwind of the warm theta advection axis
    • Within the axis of highest surface based instability (CAPE and Theta-E)
    • Within the region of lowest surface based convective inhibition (0-2.5km AGL lapse rate)
    • Temporal and spatial continuity of at least 3 hours of all of the above
  • More information on the original Short Fuse Composite and its utility in nowcasting initiation and location of the most intense convective storms (that can lead to potential tornado development) can be found in this paper:
    • Jim Johnson, 1993: The "Short Fuse" Composite: An Operational Analysis Technique for Tornado Forecasting.  In The Tornado: Its Structure, Dynamics, Prediction, and Hazards (C. Church, D. Burgess, C. Doswell, and R. Davies_Jones, eds.). Geophysical Monograph 79, American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C. pp. 605-610.   Click HERE! to read document in .pdf format.
    • Discussion of the old and new technique is offered HERE.
  • Some information on the generation of these graphics:
    • The charts are currently updating at :35 past the hour.  (Future plans are to hopefully run LAPS earlier to get the valid time graphics updated perhaps as early as :20 past the hour.
    • The surface moisture flux convergence graphic is computed locally using MSAS hourly analysis wind fields (instead of LAPS).  MSAS uses a better quality control algorithm to filter out poor wind observations, versus the LAPS analysis scheme.  Testing has concluded that the moisture convergence field offered a better signal using MSAS winds in most convective events.
    • Warm Theta Advection, Theta-E, and CAPE graphics are all the internally calculated grids from within LAPS itself.  (Future plans are to also calculate Theta Advection using MSAS winds, but the "potential temperature advection" grid from LAPS itself tends to have less noise than moisture convergence).
       
  • Latest Changes & Recent Events:
    • (6/20/2005)  We have changed Chart 2 to remove surface-based CIN and use, instead, 0-2.5km AGL low level lapse rate.  A discussion on this change can be found HERE
    • (10/5/2005)   Version 1.0 of AWIPS Short Fuse Composite is now available on the NWS AWIPS Local Applications Database.
    • (10/5/2005)  A two-part Powerpoint presentation "Using the Short Fuse Composite to Forecast Severe Convection" is now available which was presented at the 2005 9th Annual High Plains Conference.
      Part I - "History of the SFC in the AFOS Era"
      Part II - "The Next Generation SFC" which includes Case Study examples from April 10, June 9, July 3, and August 19 2005.
Questions or comments regarding the graphics can be directed to Mike Umscheid (application developer).

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