“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking.” Recent severe weather outbreaks concern preparedness among some UMKC students

   Multiple tornadoes tore through the Kansas City metro last week, damaging homes and businesses and raising students’ worries as the frequency of outbreaks appears to be increasing.

  On campus, preparedness for the unpredictable varies between students and their familiarity with the university’s advised safety measures and seasonal weather patterns.

  “It’s a little bit nerve-racking,” said Lydia Safly, a freshman studying nursing, “I’m from 30 minutes south…so we haven’t always had this many tornadoes, warnings or outbreaks.” 

  Data shows that there has been an increase in severe weather compared to past years. 

  “This has been the busiest start to the severe weather season for the Kansas City Metro in history,” said KCTV5 Meteorologist Stevie Stephenson. “So, if people are feeling like there’s been a lot of activity so far this year, they’re completely right.”

  Another concern among students is what those in residential halls should do during tornadic activity.

  “There’s not really a plan that we’ve been told to go anywhere,” Safly said. “We’ve decided just to go downstairs because we’re nervous. RAs tell people in the lobby to go downstairs, but they’re not telling people who are in their rooms.”

  Stephenson says that being prepared is the best way to navigate these situations.

  “Always an interior room on the lowest floor is going to be the best place to be, and away from windows,” said Stepehenson. “Also, having a weather app that’s not just Apple weather, but something that can really notify you if there’s going to be a severe thunderstorm.” 

  There have been 17 confirmed tornadoes in the metro so far this year, which is above average. Experts say while this is a large number, it’s not necessarily something to be worried about.

   “What we’re seeing is a classic spring pattern: warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico colliding with colder, drier air from the north, combined with a very active jet stream,” said KGKC Meteorologist Yessenia Arias. “April is part of the peak tornado season in regions like Kansas City, so this type of activity is not unusual.”

  Safly elaborated that while UMKC is efficient with notifications through texts and calls, precautions are ultimately left to student discretion and that “it’s at your own risk.”

  “When the recent storm happened, I wasn’t really tracking it,” said Abrar Khan, a freshman liberal arts major, “So to hear there was a tornado that touched down…I was kind of shocked.” 

  Khan discovered the storm through university alerts, followed by a message from his RA advising shelter in the dorm basement.

  Many Midwesterners have firsthand experience with severe weather, so some are desensitized to the number of recent warnings in the area.

  “If it were up to me, I’d sit on the roof and watch the storm roll in,” said a senior computer science major, Joshua Kawase.

  While students navigate the weather in real time, environmental science experts say it’s important to understand how weather terms are defined.

 “When we say ‘severe,’ we’re usually using the term to indicate the number of hazards present, and also how many people are affected,” said environmental science professor Dr. Alison Graettinger.

  She said that a combination of winds, hail, rain and tornadoes is when weather threats are labeled as severe and a dangerous threat to people. 

  Dr. Fengpeng Sun, another environmental science professor and climate scientist, also emphasized that individual storms cannot be used to describe long-term climate trends.

“A tornado is a weather phenomenon. Weather is different from climate,” Sun said, adding that longer data sets are necessary to identify significant changes.

  The Trump administration has proposed a $1.7 billion cut to the 2026 budget for the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), leading to worries about forecasting accuracy, according to former NWS directors.

  Both professors noted that local forecasting depends heavily on national systems, such as the NWS and NOAA, whose cuts could impact long-term research.

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