Kingman

... Chanute sets rainfall record for may 20th...

Yesterday... on may 20th... Chanute measured 2.09 inches of rain at Martin
Johnson Airport. This amount easily broke the record of 1.50 inches that
had been set way back in 1903... some 110 years ago.

... On this date in weather history...

In 1931... an unusually late may snowstorm struck the High
Plains. Tribune Kansas received 8 inches of snow.
Garden City also received heavy snow but the amount is
unknown. On the 17th... 4 days before the storm's
arrival... tribune's high temperature was 90
degrees... then the next day after the event... the
temperature soared to 85 degrees and to 91 on the 23rd.
In 1989... severe thunderstorms moving southeast from the
Central Plains to Oklahoma... Arkansas and Texas wreaked
havoc throughout the day and night. Only 4 tornadoes
were reported... but there were 243 reports of large hail
and damaging winds. Hail reached the size of baseballs
in parts of south-central Kansas while destructive winds
reached an incredible 98 mph in extreme southwest Kansas
in Johnson County.