Wet and wild: Kansas weather in 2016

Nearly the wettest year in Wichita’s history.

One of the most active Octobers for tornadoes Kansas has ever seen.

The first Christmas Day tornadoes in the state’s history.

A tornado that hammered Eureka and large tornadoes that just missed Chapman and Dodge City.

There was no shortage of signature weather events in 2016.

Kansas had 100 tornadoes this year, with at least five on Christmas Day in central and southwest Kansas. Weather officials have not yet confirmed a sixth tornado in Comanche County.

That yearly total is 15 more than the 30-year average of 85 and 39 above the annual average of 61 since reliable tornado records began being kept in 1950.

A tornado that touched down July 7 in Greenwood County was estimated to have winds of up to 165 miles an hour. Just one more mile per hour would have made it the first EF4 in state history to strike in July.

Another tornado that touched down the following week near Syracuse in southwest Kansas could well have earned an F4 rating, weather officials said, but it didn’t do enough damage for meteorologists to assess its strength on the Fujita Scale.

The tornado that slammed into Eureka after sunset July 7 was unusual due to both its strength and timing, weather officials said. Because of how weather patterns typically set up in the summer, most tornadoes that form are weak and their parent storms aren’t strong enough to spawn twisters in the absence of the sun’s heating.

“Typically, the jet stream winds you need to support strong tornadoes are much farther north at that time of year,” weather researcher Jon Davies said in an e-mail response to questions.

But the Eureka tornado was both strong and nocturnal. Residents heeded advanced warnings of the approaching tornado and there were no fatalities.

Chance Hayes, warning coordination meteorologist with the Wichita branch of the National Weather Service, credited alerts sent to cell phones with protecting the residents of Eureka.

The Wichita area and southeast Kansas saw about 15 tornadoes in 2016, which Hayes said is right in line with the region’s annual average.

The most talked-about tornadoes of the year happened near Dodge City on May 24. A series of supercell thunderstorms produced 34 tornadoes in less than five hours, including five EF3 tornadoes.

That day was “the big severe weather event for the year” in Kansas, said Larry Ruthi, meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service branch in Dodge City, in an e-mail response to questions.

Eight tornadoes touched down around Kansas on Oct. 6, making it the fourth-largest October outbreak in the state’s history. One of the tornadoes, which touched down near Salina, earned an EF3 rating.

A day later, a tornado that grew to a half-mile in width in north-central Kansas passed near Abilene and Chapman, earning an EF4 rating with winds of up to 180 miles an hour. While both cities narrowly dodged destruction, the tornado damaged rural properties in the region.

The robust year for tornadoes in Kansas was in stark contrast to the national totals. Through the end of August, only 843 tornadoes had touched down across the U.S. this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Storm Prediction Center.

At the current pace, 2016 will produce the fewest tornadoes since at least 2005, said Patrick Marsh, warning coordination meteorologist for the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

Deadly flooding

While tornadoes commonly get the most attention, flooding was the major story for the Wichita metropolitan area in 2016.

Mulvane and portions of Butler County were hit hard by flooding just three weeks apart in August and September.

Mulvane endured “unprecedented” flooding in August, City Administrator Kent Hixson said at the time. Flash flooding in Butler County triggered by the same series of storms claimed the life of 62-year-old Richard Lowery of Wichita.

In mid-September, more flooding occurred after more than a foot of rain fell in some areas over a 72-hour period.

Such heavy rains were merely peaks in one of the area’s wettest years ever. More than 50 inches of rain fell in Wichita for only the third time in the city’s history. The final total for 2016, 50.60 inches, was the second-highest total on record for Wichita.

The rain was spottier elsewhere in Kansas, though Dodge City logged the wettest April on record. Widespread heavy rains across the western half of the state over two days mid-April “really made the winter wheat crop in western Kansas,” Ruthi said. “Yields were greater than ever seen before in many areas.”

That rain had a lasting effect, he said, because as that water evaporated, it set the stage for replenishing rains to continue through the summer. Fronts moving into Kansas had abundant moisture to interact with, triggering more thunderstorms.

The final quarter of the year was marked by unusually warm weather around the Sunflower State, with Dodge City and Garden City both topping 100 on the same day in October for the first time ever.

Ashland reached a record high of 102 on Oct. 17, which was the warmest temperature observed so late in the season for Kansas.

Dodge City recorded a high of 87 on Nov. 16, breaking the previous record by eight degrees and setting the mark for warmest temperature observed so late in the season since records there began being kept in 1874.

Combined with the 88 on Feb. 18, 2016 had the distinction of setting both the earliest and latest warmest temperatures in Dodge City’s history.

A similar record was set on the other side of the state in November. Wichita climbed to 84 on Nov. 16, the warmest the city has ever been that late in the year.

Topeka set a record high of a different sort in November. The low temperature of 64 on Nov. 17 was the warmest low by seven degrees for that date and followed two consecutive days of record daytime highs.

Yet there was no mistaking it when winter arrived in the Sunflower State. The high on Dec. 7 was only 35, the first of three consecutive days on which the temperature didn’t approach 40.

Just a few days later, an extended cold snap lasting more than a week saw lows drop below zero on two consecutive nights - including a minus 10 on Dec. 18 that set a record low for that date and tied the third-coldest December temperature in Wichita history.

Numerous records were set elsewhere in Kansas during the arctic wave a week before Christmas. Garden City fell to minus 12 on Dec. 19, breaking the record of minus 6 set in 1983.

The day before had been even colder in southwest Kansas. Garden City dropped to minus 19, a whopping 13 degrees colder than the previous record for Dec. 18, set in 1983. Dodge City settled for minus 16, seven degrees colder than the old mark set in 1924.

Medicine Lodge logged a low of minus 11, shattering the previous record of 0 set in 1964.

Hill City in northwest Kansas recorded a temperature of minus 16 on Dec. 18, setting a record for that date. The old mark was minus 10 set in 1964.

Colby and Tribune also broke records on Dec. 18, according to the National Weather Service. Tribune’s minus 13 toppled the minus 7 of 1924, while the minus 16 at Colby erased the minus 11 of 1983.

The fickle nature of weather was on full display as the year drew to a close, however: A surge of warm air pushed Wichita’s Christmas Day high to 67, a record for Dec. 25.

The 77-degree swing from Dec. 18 to 25 was the largest ever for a week in December in Wichita’s history.

Given the extremes that helped define 2016, it seemed a fitting coda to the year.

This story was originally published December 29, 2016 at 10:19 AM with the headline "Wet and wild: Kansas weather in 2016."