Storm Tourism Boosts the Kansas Economy

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Drone photo of Ellsworth by northwest Arkansas
storm chaser Charles Peek

It was amazing Saturday to see the tweets in my feed.

  • "Grabbing lunch in Abilene before moving further west..."
  • "On I-70, we'll get lunch in Salina, we reevaluate and head north or west from there..."
  • "Spent the night in Pratt...we are headed north to Great Bend.."
Above is a tiny sample of comments made by people who came to Kansas Saturday to view the storms. There were people from all over the country. I'm aware of people from Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Washington, DC and the State of Washington. I'm sure there were other states represented. 
#KSwx = twitter handle for "Kansas Weather"

The dots are the members of Spotternet who were in Kansas viewing the storms. This represents only a fraction of those visiting (for example, I'm not a member of Spotternet). 

Not only are people staying in hotels, dining in restaurants and buying fuel at gas stations, they picturing the beauty of our state. Just gaze at the photo at the top from The Weather Channel's Charles Peek. 

I recommend to Wichita and Kansas tourism officials that we do everything we can reasonably to continue to grow the visitors coming to our state to view the unmatched Kansas sky. If any of you have questions, just give me a call. 

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