By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
Those summertime thunderstorms that pop up at night in the Great Plains are the focus of a large weather experiment that will be centered in Ellis County.
A group of government agencies, according to Karen Kosiba, atmospheric scientist with the Center for Severe Weather Research, will be collecting data during nighttime storms in an effort to learn how they form, why they become severe and how to better predict them.
Plains Elevated Convection at Night – PECAN – will be conducted at night between June 1 and July 15.
According to Kosiba, the more than 100 researchers and students will be based at Fort Hays State University in Hays and will travel into parts of Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma.
The goal, she said, is to better predict storms at night.
“It is very difficult to predict thunderstorm occurrence after sunset and if these storms will become severe and if damaging winds will reach the surface.” Kosiba said.
She added the storms that form at night are different from the afternoon storms that bring with them the possibility of tornadoes.
“They have different atmospheric conditions, that are going on,” Kosiba said. “Near the surface, our atmosphere is what we call stable, so you wouldn’t really think that things would happen but above the surface there is a lot going on.”
Researchers will deploy dozens of pieces of research equipment throughout the area.
The will have eight mobile radars, three research aircrafts and a number of other weather instruments. They will use have a radar that will be deployed south of Hays.
Researchers and students will begin moving into the Hays area this weekend, and Kosiba said people can expect to see mobile radar trucks and pickup and minivans equipped with weather instruments attached to them.
The Wyoming King Air Research Airplane will be stationed in Great Bend. The plane will be used to test atmospheric conditions around the storms.
Everyone will get a chance to check out the equipment the researchers will be using this weekend at an open house at the Hays Regional Airport.
Kosiba said they will have the King Air, the radar trucks and weather balloons at the airport so people can come out and look at the equipment and ask questions of the researchers.
“This is people’s opportunity to crawl on instruments and ask all these questions they may have had about weather in Kansas,” said Kosiba.
The open house is Saturday, May 30 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Hays Regional Airport.
There, people can tour the aircraft and instruments. Weather balloon launches are scheduled from 3 to 4 p.m.