Last night, areas around Wichita had a heat burst because of the decaying thunderstorms and some places made it up over 100 degrees. Thunderstorms (rotating anticyclonically, too! 
) began rapidly falling apart and have sinced pushed out very strong downburst winds south of Kansas City. Right now they’re intermittently gusting between almost nothing and frighteningly strong. And, the temperature has risen to near 90 degrees. I think we might be having another heat burst tonight! It’s so exciting to experience a rare weather phenomenon, and even weirder is I’m away at 1am. O.o
* IMPACTS: AN AREA OF DECAYING THUNDERSTORMS HAS ALREADY PRODUCED VERY
STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS OF 50 TO 70 MPH IN PORTIONS OF FRANKLIN AND SOUTHERN JOHNSON COUNTIES...ALONG WITH SIGNIFICANT TREE DAMAGE. THESE STRONG AND POSSIBLY DAMAGING WINDS WILL AFFECT PARTS OF JOHNSON...MIAMI...AND LINN COUNTIES IN KANSAS...AS WELL AS BATES AND
CASS COUNTIES IN MISSOURI.
A QUICK BURST OF DRY HEAT MAY ALSO ACCOMPANY THESE STRONG
WINDS.
It’s a pretty interesting phenomena. It’s got to feel weird if you are standing outside when it happens. (Of course, with winds up to 70 mph, you probably won’t be standing outside.)
Here is a link from the NWS in Wichita. They have some very good radar images posted on the page. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=ict&storyid=69444&source=0
I’ve never even heard of that before… is it similar to a chinook wind, or am I thinking of something completely different?
It was 94 degrees the other day (ties the hottest temp of 2010 IMBY) but it’s struggling to hit 60 today. What a difference! Average high temp for the date is 74.