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University Daily Kansan, March 23, 1983
Tornado activity expected to peak
By JIM BOLE Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
This year's tornado season could be the peak of an eight-year cycle, a meteorologist said yesterday.
Steve Schurr, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, said tornadoes seemed to follow eight-year sunspot cycles.
"But we don't know if it peaked last year, or if it will peak this year," he said.
National Weather Service statistics show an increase in the number of tornadoes in Kansas from about 20 in 1980 to about 60 last year.
TORNADOES. THE MOST violent kind of storm, tear through the Midwest more than any other place in the world. They are caused by warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meeting cold
air from the north over the plains of the United States, he said.
Kansas, which averages 43 tornadoes a year, has the third highest annual average in the nation. Texas has the highest, with an average of 119 tornadoes a year, and Oklahoma, which averages 53 annually, has the second highest.
In Kansas, the monthly average number of tornadoes climbs from about two in March to a peak of about 15 in May, according to weather service data compiled since 1950.
Despite modern forecasting, sightings of tornadoes by spotters still yield the most accurate information, Schurr told about 45 people at a training and weather safety meeting yesterday in Nichols Hall on West Campus.
Phil Leonard, Douglas County Emergency Preparedness director, said volunteer spotters from Skywarn
and local amateur radio operators, placed in strategic spots in Douglas County, kept him aware of tornado activity in the Lawrence area.
SKYWARN MEMBERS HAVE special training in spotting tornadoes, first aid and traffic control, he said.
During severe weather, Leonard analyzes reports from the spotters, police and the weather service and determines whether sirens in Lawrence, Eudora, Baldwin or Lecompton should be sounded, he said.
Spotters watch for a drop in the cloud level in the rain-free area behind thunderstorm clouds, Schurr said. The drop, called a wall cloud, is where most tornadoes are formed, he said.
Once a tornado is sighted, the weather service issues a warning over local radio and TV stations and the weather service own VHF radio network, he said.
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