Wednesday was indeed a windy day, but thankfully concerns about power outages and other related concerns didn’t fully manifest themselves.
Wind gusts were above 50 mph before sunrise and between 40-50 mph at the Emporia Municipal Airport until late Wednesday night. Gusts elsewhere were higher, including a 63 mph gust 1 mile south-southwest of Lebo. The peak gust at Eureka’s Milliken Airport was 53 mph.
Sporadic, mainly small-scale power outages developed across the area — well below the wind-driven outage numbers from Friday, when gusts of 60 to nearly 80 mph caused around 4,000 outages for Evergy customers areawide, including more than 3,000 just in Emporia. There was a wind-and-rain-related transformer fire in the Evergy substation near Roads 160 and F just southwest of Emporia. Spokesperson Gina Penzig says the fire led to five total outages and was quickly resolved.
Travelers also had to contend with a mix of light rain, sleet and snow for part of the afternoon before a brief changeover to all snow late in the day. There was no accumulation locally and no travel issues were reported.
Temperatures will be in the upper 50s with occasionally breezy conditions Thursday. Friday will have highs in the mid-60s with more consistently breezy conditions and an elevated fire danger as a result.
KVOE and KVOE.com will have updates.
