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~ ,tpl./ -f WESTERN KANSAS WEATHER NEWSLETTER 94 - 3 DIR'~ f-' se ft.....;; i i --...' F I L E . - 151 POl FOR THE PE:ll.!OD MACi 15 - MAY 2l, 1994 GEN~BNi INTEREST: Recently I the American Meteorological society Newsletter reported a few items which are of passing interest to those ~lO are interested in aome weather statistics. Last year was quite a year, in retrospect: The NOAA group, the Climate Analysis center (C:"\~): ,located in Camp Springs, MD has dupbed 1993 the "'Year of Water". The CAe reports last year's flooding of the Midwest was the costliest in the nation's history, ranking it second only to Hurricane Andrew in terms, of damage with nearly 50 daaths and damages estimated at $15-20 billion over a nine-state arsa. Also, the CAe notes that earlier in 1993 the so-called "Storm of the Century" was a March blizzard that produced snow from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine and attributing 240 deaths to it. Nearly three-fourths of the USA had temperatures cooler than normal; only :2 percent were warmer than normal. Five states--- Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming---had temperatures in the top ten coldest while no states ranked in the top ten warmest. In the past 100 years, Kansas had the third coldest and fourth wettest year; similarly, Nebraska had the second coldes~ and second wettest. Other phenomena were: a near-record 1,192 tornadoes were sighted, second only to 1992's 1,297 and stratospheric ozone fell to a record low in the Antarctic. They noted, also, that comparing last year's estimate of global temperilture to glObal surfacl! temperatures for the 30-year period, 1951-1980. ~emperatures increased about one-third of a degree tanrenheit. =====~==~==========~=~~~=~=~~==~=~========:==~~=~=====~===~~=~=~~= OPERATIONS (All times are COT'): MAY lath. OPERA'I'IQNlU. DAY #7: Late afternoon thunderstorms and rainshowers built in eastern Colorado and moved slowly northeast as the evening progressed. As storms moved closer to the Kansas- ColoradO border, flights were launched as a precaution against the threat of hail. BetWeen 10:52 p.m. and 11:20 p.m. all aircraft were scrambled to storms moving into the Stanton, Hamilton and Greeley counties. However. just as had been the case the previous night, storms dissipated quickly as they moved into Kansas and very little seeding of any kind was performed. The cloud top flight was canceled before take-off. Precautionary seeding to reduce hail was performed briefly in northwest Hamilton County between ll:25 and 11: 3'2 p.m.; rainfall stimulation was done in northwest stanton- southwest Hamilton from ll:47 to 11:53 p.m. One aircraft continued patrolling the storm area until 12: 10 a.m. Two of the aircra1"t did not seed. Total flight time for all aircraft was 3.3 hours.