My First Heat Burst

[Tim Newman]

I was sitting at my apartment in Hutchinson, KS last night and I heard the wind start blowing very hard. I got up and opened my west-facing door. I felt like I had walked into a blast furnace. The wind was very strong and very hot and dry. There was the occasional sprinkle and even the water was hot. I checked the weather on my blackberry (the only internet I have at my apartment right now) and it said 87 degrees at the Hutchinson Airport at 22:52. The winds had another five miles to go to get to the airport so I thought that reading would surely go up.

I got an email from ICT this morning about it. We had a gust of 75mph at the airport. There is a weather story about it this morning on the ICT site. I have posted the link here:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ict/scripts/viewstory.php?STORY_NUMBER=2009061807

We had a building blow apart and land in the street and on the railroad tracks. This happened within a few blocks of me.

Anyway, thought I would share my story. Mods, please place this where it needs to be if I have misplaced it. Thank you,

 

[Mark Blue]

I know what you mean by blast furnace. I remember going to Kansas City during the summer of 1999 and the daily highs were around 95 or 100 with a stiff south wind that whole trip. The air just felt like you were being hit by a blast furnace right in the old kisser!

 

[Tony Lehman]

Newbe on Heatburst

Sounds like a Heat Burst alright. I don't know much about, but I believe I have experienced a couple over the years. Once many years ago (more than 10), There was an afternoon severe thunderstorm move past my place in central Texas (late Summer I think). I could tell that this storm had an unusually high anvil top with mammatus. The core had moved on southward and visibility was good but growing dark after sunset. Suddenly the wind picked up to very strong from the direction of the departing storm. There was a surg in temperature. It got downright hot. Kinda like you say - blast furnace feeling. This wind and excessive heat lasted about an hour. I never did see anything in newspaper on the event (before the days of internet and bulletin boards). But I knew I had witnessed something unusual. I never have had explained what causes something like this. I know air heats as it descends, but to cause such a heat event and blow - I don't know. Maybe someone can explain...

Tony

 

[Wes Carter]

Tony, I really can't explain it to you because I had never heard of a heat burst until I read this thread. However, it got my curiosity up so I did some digging and found these: NWS Heat Burst Explanation
Another Explanation

And here is some text copied and pasted from another forum:

"Essentially what you need is a very dry atmosphere in the middle to upper levels and typically a dying thunderstorm. The dry atmosphere allows for any of the precipitation falling in this layer to be completely evaporated (the dying thunderstorm creates a situation where there isn't too much precipitation, so that all the water can be evaporated). The evaporation process 'sucks' up a bunch of the heat from this air and causes it cool and become more dense than its surroundings. Since this air is more dense it begins to fall towards the ground. The pressure of the atmosphere is greater as you get closer to the ground, so as the air falls, it gets compressed and is forced to heat up (ideal gas law). Now one caveat is that this air must fall towards the ground very very fast, because as the air heats up, it will become less dense and want to rise in relation to its surroundings. If the air doesn't fall to the ground fast enough, it will just become buoyant and rise back up in the atmosphere without ever reaching the ground.."
Source

 

[Tim Newman]

Here are the measurements from the McPherson, KS ASOS that night. Granted McP is about 25 miles NE of Hutch, but it will give you an idea of how hot and how fast this happened. 100 degrees at 11:30 PM? A 16 degree rise in 45 minutes? Weather is COOL! or hot, in this case. LOL

Time Temp RH Wind
1042 pm 84 40 SW at 10 mph gusting to 30 mph
1115 pm 87 36 SW at 17 mph gusting to 23 mph
1120 pm 88 29 SW at 30 mph gusting to 37 mph
1122 pm 91 23 SW at 40 mph gusting to 52 mph
1125 pm 94 20 SW at 33 mph gusting to 52 mph
1131 pm 100 15 SW at 29 mph gusting to 52 mph

Tim

 

[Tony Lehman]

Thanks Wes. I checked out the linked info. And your explanation sounded good. I was wondering whether something might have forced the jet stream down to the surface or something similar. Evaporation caused 'downdraft' works for me.

I know I have experienced such an event more than once in my life, but I don't remember the particulars on the other times.

Tony

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

I know I have experienced such an event more than once in my life, but I don't remember the particulars on the other times.
Tony

First time I experienced it, was pre-Stormtrack.org, and when I actually used The Weather Channel I woke up approx. 6:30 after having stayed up the night before watching storms march across Nebraska, and turned on TWC, who told me that "Current Conditions: 95F". I had to check the time to confirm how long I'd been asleep...

 

[Steve Worthington]

The Heat burst that hit Hutchinson KS was from dying cells in western Kansas.
We were chasing that evening out west (Pratt and Greensburg Area) and didn't think much about the cells we were on as they kept dying off on us so we turned around and headed back to Hutchinson (Home for us)
I was parking our chase car in our shop and going to drive my truck home when the burst hit. I remember trying to drive a crossed main street but couldn't see where I was going because of all the dirt that was flying around. The wind reached over 80+ mph that night for about 10 minutes or so and that was not a gust reading, the temp went up some + 20 degrees. It was crazy and one of the wildest things I`ve ever been in at night. It did feel like a blast furnace on your face. I have pictures of the Dying storms out west and we did get strong winds (Sand Storms) when we were out there but I never thought the night was going to end the way it did....lol...