Kansas City, Mo. ? The thought of having nearly 200 tornadoes break out in one state over the course of a year might seem pretty extreme to some. But to Kansas state climatologist Mary Knapp, the 199 twisters that dropped from Kansas skies in 2008 were simply “a little higher than normal, but not terribly high.”

Or maybe it just doesn’t seem so bad in the wake of 2007, when 13 people were killed by tornadoes and the town of Greensburg was virtually wiped out.

Then again, it is Kansas, where a popular saying is that “if you don’t like the weather, wait 10 minutes.”

“We had an interesting year,” Knapp said. “We had tornadoes. We had ice storms and floods and drought. Probably the whole gamut … somewhere in this state someone had it.”

Tornado season

Knapp said there were 11 tornadoes of at least F3 strength, with the total storm damage in the state estimated around $1.5 billion. Four people lost their lives in the storms, including a Colorado couple whose car was picked up by a tornado in May and flung into a field along U.S. 54 east of Pratt.

Two others were killed when a series of June 11 tornadoes roared through Chapman, a town of about 1,300 west of Junction City, across the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan and farther east through Jackson County.

A 21-year-old Cloud County Community College student died in Chapman, which suffered extensive damage, and a 62-year-old farmer was killed in Jackson County when he was thrown from his mobile home.

While the damage to Chapman was extensive, it still paled in comparison to the destruction a year earlier in Greensburg.

“This year was similar to 2007 in that we had federal disaster declarations for flooding, tornadoes and ice,” said Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General’s Office. “We didn’t have as many in 2008 as in 2007, and the severity of the storms in 2007 was much greater.”

‘Every one is seen’

National Weather Service meteorologist George Phillips in Topeka said he’s not surprised by the high number of tornadoes that hit the state in 2008, noting that many were in unpopulated areas in central and western Kansas.

“Part of the increase is because every one is seen now,” he said. “Twenty or 30 years ago there were not as many chasers or spotters as there are now. But you also go through cycles, and during some periods of time you get patterns that set up and have the perfect conditions for tornadoes.”

He said Topeka had slightly above normal rainfall, but nothing significant, and temperatures were about half a degree below normal.

Watson said there were three federal disaster declarations in Kansas in 2008, the first the result of a late December 2007, ice storm that lingered into January and affected about 60 counties.

The second disaster declaration came after the May and June tornadoes and included 46 counties.

The third, in October, was in response to severe storms and flooding Sept. 11-17 in the south-central part of the state.

Knapp said widespread rainfall of 8 to 10 inches created huge problems with flooding in Wichita and other parts of southeast Kansas and claimed the lives of two people — one man who drove his SUV into floodwaters and one man who died trying to help rescue a group of teenagers whose raft capsized in Chikaskia River.

She estimated that the year would land about eighth wettest on record in Kansas. The record low precipitation total was 15.39 inches in 1956, she said.

“We continue to hope things will slow down and the weather will improve and give us a break, but we’re not going to count on it,” she said. “We’re making sure we’re prepared for something more.”