Weather spotters like team name

The Omaha Royals' new name, the Storm Chasers, centers on the one thing Midlanders talk about more than sports: weather.

And you can bet that more than one real-life storm chaser will follow the metropolitan area's renamed minor league baseball team to its new stadium in Sarpy County.

“We love the name, anything that has to do with storms or weather,” said Jay Tunzer, president of Heartland REACT, a nonprofit group of volunteers who track severe weather for the National Weather Service and local law enforcement.

Tunzer is unswayed by the criticism, even ridicule, the new name and team mascots have engendered. “You can't get storms like the ones we have here in the Plains anywhere else in the world,” he said.

No matter your opinion of the new nickname, there certainly is a history of wild weather in the region.

Some evidence:

Hottest day: 114 degrees, July 25, 1936

Coldest day: -32 degrees, Jan. 5, 1884

Rain delay: Most rain in one calendar day: 6.46 inches, Aug. 7, 1999

Cold streak: 29 consecutive nights at or below zero, winter of 1936; and 46 days in a row at or below freezing, winter of 1978

May madness: Latest measurable snow, May 9, 1945; earliest 100-degree day, May 24, 1967; latest spring freeze, May 29, 1947

Largest hailstone: 4.5 inches in Douglas and Saunders Counties, April 1989, and Sarpy County, May 2003; 5 inches in Cass County, June 1967. State record, 7 inches, June 2003, in Aurora.

A mighty wind: No one knows the speed of the strongest straight-line winds to strike the Omaha area. Damage patterns indicate wind speeds of 110 mph to 115 mph on June 27, 2008.

Tornado alley: Sarpy County has seen nine tornadoes since 1950; Douglas County, 15. Both saw one F-4 tornado — on May 6, 1975. Coincidentally, that tornado touched down in the vicinity of the new ballpark.

Sources: National Weather Service, Valley and NWS meteorologist Barbara Mayes; Regional Climatologist Natalie Umphlett, High Plains Regional Climate Center

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