Area wakes to Mother Nature's alarm
By MIKE CORN
Mother Nature set her alarm clock a mite earlier this morning, waking area residents to the sound of thunder as several waves of storms passed through the area.
The first of many alerts was issued at about 5:30 a.m. today by the National Weather Service in Goodland for a series of storms in Gove and Logan counties. Another alert was issued shortly thereafter by the Dodge City NWS office, for parts of Ness County.
And it didn't stop there.
The early-morning storms had been expected, according to Katie Burtis, a meteorologist with the Goodland NWS office.
Weather conditions were expected to start tapering off by mid-morning but fire up once again as temperatures warmed and a weather system approached from the west.
That advancing weather system, she said, actually should make Tuesday a more active day for the possibility of storms.
What that means, she said, is northwest Kansas residents should remain alert, keeping a close watch on the sky. At night, weather alert radios could prove to be worth their weight in gold as the weather bureau keeps tab on impending storms and issues alerts as conditions warrant.
It's been a wacky weekend for weather, with snowfall -- officially an inch -- falling Friday in the Goodland area.
"It had, by the afternoon Saturday, melted away," she said.
This morning, Burtis said, the sky was clear in Goodland, even as rain fell in the Hays area.
At the Kansas State University Agricultural Research Center south of Hays, 0.26 of an inch was reported as of 8 a.m. -- with more rain to follow.
The greatest rainfall report this morning came from the Trego Center area, where one of the storm alerts focused. There, 1.8 inches fell, according to a volunteer observer with the Community Collaborative Rain, Snow and Hail Network -- CoCoRaHs, as it's generally called. Other small rainfall amounts were reported, primarily because of the timing of the storm -- coming right at 7 a.m. when most reports are filed.
Burtis said storms should fire back up this afternoon throughout the area. Overnight, the storm system will start moving east, out of Colorado.
But it will remain in Kansas.
"There might be a better chance for severe weather," she said of conditions Tuesday.
She also notes it's springtime.
"It's the severe weather time of year, so it's the time to be prepared for this."