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Minutes of Meetings |
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Minutes of Meetings |
Business Meeting
Speaker
Julie Adolphson
Meteorologist in Charge
NWS WFO Pleasant Hill, MO
Topic: Space Weather: What Will They Think of Next?
Business Meeting
Treasurer's Report
President's Report
Speaker
Charles Perry
United States Geological Survey
Lawrence, KS
Great Drought of 1999-2009:
Physical reasons for the Dirty 30’s and the Ugly Oughts (2000’s)
Solar activity/ocean/atmospheric processes & Mississippi River flow
www.srh.noaa.gov/rfcshare/precip_analysis_new.php
Comparing the 30’S with the 2000’s
The Kansas City Chapter of the American Meteorological Society held its first meeting of the 2007-2008 year, on September 18, 2007, in mid-town Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. The meeting’s topic was the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Country Club Plaza Flood of 1977. Appropriately, the meeting was held on the Plaza, in a building (next to Brush Creek) that was under water during the flood of 1977.
Business Meeting
Chapter President Mike Hudson called the September meeting of the KC AMS chapter to order around 7:40 pm, after a chapter dinner at the Granfalloon Bar and Grill in Kansas City, MO. A total of 54 members and guests were in attendance. Hudson made a welcoming address and called the meeting to order for a brief business session. The executive board of the Chapter has offered to extend a $5.00 rebate incentive to any current members who bring in a new member, or bring a previous member (earlier than the 2005/06 year) back to the rolls (limit 4 new ‘rebates’ to regular members and 1 new ‘rebate’ to student members). The chapter goal this year is to grow from 76 paid members to 100. The executive board has also discussed providing some incentive for encouraging new faces to run for future officer positions (2008-2009 and beyond). Chapter action on that proposal will be asked for later in the year. Hudson also reminded members that there is a place on this year’s membership form to express and interest in meeting nights. Most of last year’s meetings and the early meetings this year were/are slated for the third Tuesday of the month. A survey will be distributed soon to members by email or mail depending on your preferences for meeting announcements. This survey will ask further questions about meeting days, locations, meals and prices. It will also solicit members who are interested to serve on one or more of four committees:
Administrative Reports
Treasurer Evan Bookbinder reported a balance to begin the new year of $443.00. Mike Hudson gave a summary of the last meeting’s notes from May, 2007, when the chapter commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Ruskin Heights tornado, the last F5 tornado to strike the greater metro area. Joe Audsley (retired NWS), Jon Finch (NWS Dodge City), Suzanne Fortin (NWS Pleasant Hill) and Les Lemon (WDTB) were the speakers at that meeting, and they shared research, memories and observations from that tornado event.
Speaker
The speaker was Jack Hales, lead forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK, formerly the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City. While at NSSFC, Jack had done research into the Plaza Flood of 1977. Jack spoke about the “Plaza Flood” 30 years and 6 days prior to the meeting that had inundated the very restaurant that we were in that evening. Tremendous rains fell during the late night of September 11th/12th over the small basin that drains into Brush Creek. Brush Creek runs along the southern parts of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza region, an area of up-scale shopping and dinning along with 5-star hotels. Weather conditions that spawned the initial rains on the night of the 11th/12th were brought on be a fairly non-descript 500mb pattern with a weak trough over western Kansas, but with some other “flood” features that included a 250mb jet segment and a strong, southerly low-level jet of 45 kts at 850mb. The following afternoon and evening, a second round of storms was spawned by a 30kt 850 jet continuing to provide abundant humidity, the lingering 250mb jet segment and resultant right entrance region, and the 500mb trough deepening and sliding farther east over Kansas. Surface features on the late afternoon of the 12th included a warm front just to the south of Kansas City and a weak cool front extending from northeast to southwest across northeastern into central Kansas. Severe weather was largely insignificant. Upper air profiles surrounding Kansas City indicated a deep humid layer, fairly insignificant lapse rates and minimal change in winds aloft speed and direction. The first nights rains brought a stream flow on Brush Creek of 5.600 cfs in a typical urban spike. The second evenings stream flow grew to 17,800cfs, again a quick spike that peaked around 11:00 PM. Flood warnings for the evening of the 12th were issued at 7:45 PM. In addition to the stores and businesses that were flooded, approximately 2,000 automobiles were destroyed in the flood. Loss of life at and near the Plaza was put at 25. Sixty-eight percent of those deaths were directly associated to an automobile.
In subsequent years, the US Army Corp of Engineers sought to deepen and widen what had been a competitively small, concrete channel, and to raise the level of numerous urban bridges. By October 1998, most of the necessary channel work had been completed through the immediate Plaza stretch of the stream, but was yet on-going down stream on Brush Creek before its confluence with a much larger stream, the Blue River. Jack had spoke to the chapter on the 20th anniversary of the flood in 1997. One year later, on October, 4, 1998, Brush Creek experienced another devastating flood which Jack touched on as a new development since his last presentation. A deep and large low circulation had developed over the central Great Plains, and there was a deep mid-level trough over the western U.S. Soundings revealed plenty of humidity in the lower- and mid-levels, steep lapse rates and plenty of shear in the eastern Plains. Twenty tornadoes tore across Oklahoma, while Kansas and Missouri had numerous reports of large hail and storm winds. For Kansas City though, a stubborn warm front hung southward of the city and once the severe storms formed into a line and eventually a bow echo, it was to be another major rainfall event. The bow echo pushed through Kansas City during the early evening and on toward north-central Missouri, but yielded back-building storms over Kansas City to build on previous rains. Intense rainfall rates rivaled those of the 1977 flood event for several hours through the heart of the city, including the few square miles of Brush Creek. Completed construction through the immediate Plaza area allowed the resultant flood flow to sweep past there uneventfully. However, in the area just blocks downstream, where channel work and bigger bridges had yet to be completed, seven lives were lost when flood waters overtopped the old Prospect Avenue bridge over Brush Creek. Additional lives were lost to flash flooding around the remainder of the metro area that evening as well. The city has spent around $150 million since 1998 in completing the Brush Creek project to the Blue River.
The meeting concluded around 8:45 pm.