#lfk

[gothictravelguide]

[anexperimentallife]

One of the many charms of my hometown

[vancomycin]

Sweatermuppet spotted in Lawrence, Kansas

[mckitterick]

Mr Heat Miser can go to hell

116° heat index is too damn much

[jakeromanoart]

colorful buggy commission 🌈🐜!

✨ commissions are open ⚡ find my art on twitter, twitch, instagram, @ jakeromanoart

[ianpcartoonr]

TWRP Digital Nightmare Tour! 🤘🤘🤘🤘

[adastra-sf]

Tornadoes: a backgrounder

^ photo of the 2019 Lawrence-Linwood EF4 monster, looking south from KU, the highest point in Kansas - just up the hill from Ad Astra headquarters

Tornadoes are columns of fast-rotating air extending from a stormcloud to the ground, with winds that can exceed 500 km/h (310 mph). In 2024, they were responsible for approximately $1.7B in damage and 54 deaths in the USA, which experiences the most tornadoes of any nation.

Current models suggest tornadoes form from wind shear, with winds having widely different speeds and directions at different altitudes. Air caught in this wind shear can circulate horizontally, rolling a tube of air like Fred Flintstone's car wheel.

If it encounters a supercell - a thunderstorm with strong upward airflow - the tube can tilt vertically and stretch, narrowing and rotating faster. The resulting structure - a funnel cloud - becomes a tornado when it touches ground.

Tornadoes are categorized on the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale after damage is assessed across various types of structures and trees. About 77% of tornadoes are considered "weak" on this scale (EF0 or EF1), despite producing gusts as strong as 177 kilometers (110 miles) per hour.

Size also varies widely, from tiny twisters barely wider than a person to monsters like the one illustrated above, which tore a mile-wide swath 30 miles long starting just south of LFK, surrounded and hidden by a wall of rain and hail much wider.

[impossibletragedykitten]

My favorite midwest shop by a mile. Then they go do something like this and make me dig them more. 🫶