Why is it so windy in Kansas this year? Wind warnings record broken in just four months.
The high winds across Kansas are breaking records.
Chad Omitt, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service Office in Topeka, said the state had never seen more than 25 high wind warnings in any calendar year since it began tracking the data in 2006.
Kansas has already seen 30 such warnings this year, according to data The Capital-Journal acquired Monday from Iowa State University's Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
Omitt said Kansas sees an average of about 11 high wind warnings per calendar year — and had already seen more than twice that amount in less than four months of 2022.
"If you look at the state count for high wind warnings that have been issued for any part of Kansas this year you'll see we are already tied for the record at 25," he wrote in an email. "Since we have most of the year to go I would expect we will break that record."
More: Hundreds of homes and businesses damaged from Kansas tornadoes. See damage in Andover.
The state then topped that total late Friday, when a squall line of storms accompanying a cold front swept across the state's eastern half, bringing tornadoes and high winds.
The weather service issues a high wind warning when it expects sustained winds of 40 mph or more for an hour or more and/or wind gusts of 58 mph or more for any duration, Omitt said.
Such winds bring an increased danger for wildfires, power outages and damage from debris.
More: The 2022 Andover tornado damaged over 1,000 buildings in a 12.75 mile path. Here's what we know.
Why is Kansas seeing so much high winds in 2022?
A key reason it's been so windy this year across the region is because a very active and strong jet stream or storm track has been focused over the central Rockies into the central plains, which causes very strong areas of low pressure to form near the surface, Omitt said.
Since March, he said, that jet stream has caused numerous strong low pressure systems to develop just east of the Rocky Mountains, then head east across the region.
"When that occurs, we have very strong winds out of the south or southwest to the east or southeast of the low pressure system," Omitt said, "and then as the low center moves away, winds become west or northwest and often tend to be nearly as strong."
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It's not just Kansas that's windy, other states are seeing it, too
A similar phenomenon is occurring in Iowa, which is seeing a close-to-record number of wind advisories, the Des Moines Register reported last week.
It attributed the high number of advisories, at least in part, to Iowa's having seen many storms this year coming out of the south, only to be followed by winds coming from the northwest, with the mixing of winds tending to increase wind gusts.
The weather service issues a wind advisory when it expects sustained winds of 31 to 39 mph for an hour or more and/or wind gusts of 46 to 57 mph for any duration.
Kansas' total number of wind advisories dropped considerably after such advisories stopped being issued in 2014 by the weather service offices in Dodge City, Goodland and Hastings, Neb., which covers an area that includes six counties in north-central Kansas, Omitt said.
Kansas saw 135 wind advisories in 2014 but hasn't seen more than 42 in any given calendar year since, according to data from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
More: Topeka vacant property registry includes 49 houses. Here is where they are located.
Tim Hrenchir can be reached at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Why is Kansas so windy in 2022? State passes high wind warning record
