After passing jQuery Ajax to PHP in Wordpress, how to update global variable prior to use in other function (without using async=false)?

Question

First time posting to StackOverflow. (upvotes appreciated to help me get included in the community)

Despite being new to coding in general, I've been able to work out the following steps in Wordpress thanks to Zac Gordon's very helpful video https://youtu.be/Z0Jw226QKAM?t=216 and demo files https://github.com/zgordon/wordpress-ajax following the steps he outlines:

1. Pass Nonce and AJAX URL via wp_localize_script
2. Make AJAX call with Nonce and URL in JavaScript
3. Hook PHP AJAX Function into Wordpress AJAX Hooks
4. Use JavaScript to Handle AJAX Response

Although I am able to return the expected result with the AJAX response (which I can print to console) and I am now able to retrieve a value to pass to another function, I am unable to update the value in advance of passing it to other functions.

Based on other StackOverflow conversations (JQuery - Storing ajax response into global variable) I am thinking this is probably an issue with Asynchronous vs Synchronous AJAX calling. However I've further read that setting "async: false" should be avoided at all costs and seems to be deprecated at this point (and didn't help when I tried) so I'm trying to find the proper way to pass this variable from one function to another. Answers I read were not specific to Wordpress which left me at a loss for solving on my own.

The goal is fairly straightforward: get the $(window).height() using AJAX, store as a variable, pass variable into another function in PHP which transforms that variable and adjusts the height of a map Plugin (hook: storymap_heights ).

For starters: I'm currently just trying to get this to work with initial page load, but I would also be curious if it's possible to rerun the functions every time the browser window is resized?

The following code gets me close: I have to refresh twice for the global variable $heights {and/or "get_option( 'jsforwp_heights' )" } to update and properly set the "new" browser window size (so it seems to be storing the variable but not until after it runs through at least once before). The code is currently stored in a Wordpress Snippets plugin, but should work the same as being placed in Functions.php:

<?PHP

global $heights;
if ( null == $heights  ) {
  add_option( 'jsforwp_heights', 100 );
}
$heights = get_option( 'jsforwp_heights' );

function my_theme_scripts() {
    wp_enqueue_script( 'my-great-script', get_template_directory_uri() . '/assets/js/my-great-script.js', array( 'jquery' ), '1.12.4', true );
    wp_localize_script(
        'my-great-script',
        'jsforwp_globals',
        [
            'ajax_url' => admin_url('admin-ajax.php'),
            'total_heights' => get_option('jsforwp_heights'),
            'nonce' => wp_create_nonce('nonce_name')
        ]
    );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_scripts' );

function screen_height_is(){
    check_ajax_referer('nonce_name');
    global $heights;
    $heights = $_POST['height'];
    update_option('jsforwp_heights',$heights);
//  set_map_height($heights);  //test
    $response['success'] = true;
    $response['height'] = $heights;     
    $response = json_encode($response);
    echo $response;
    wp_die();
}

add_action('wp_ajax_screen_height_is','screen_height_is',1);
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_screen_height_is', 'screen_height_is',1 );

function set_map_height(){
            global $heights;
            $testA = get_option('jsforwp_heights');  
            $testB = "px";
            $height = $testA. $testB;
            echo $height;
            return $height; 
            }
add_filter('storymaps_heights','set_map_height',10);    

//tests for function above
  //function set_map_height($heights){ 
  //$testA = '300'; //static option
  //$testA = $heights; //works with same loading delay problem
  //$testA = $response['height']; //doesn't work even if $response set as global
    

I have tried nesting the functions without success and calling the set_map_height($heights) from within the screen_height_is() function without success. I also have tried setting #Priority within add_action and add_filter (1 for add_action, 10 for add_filter) to try to get them to wait to run but this also does not seem correct.

The following code is stored in my js file: my-great-script.js:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
    var myResponse;
    $.ajax({
        type: 'post',
        dataType: 'json',
        url: jsforwp_globals.ajax_url,
        async: false,
        data: {
            action       : 'screen_height_is',
            _ajax_nonce  : jsforwp_globals.nonce,
            width        : $(window).width(),
            height       : $(window).height(),
            screen_width : screen.width,
            screen_height: screen.height
        },
        success: function( response ) {
 //      if( 'success' == response) {
         if( response['success'] == true) {
            alert("Something went right");
         }
         else {
            alert("Something went wrong");
         }
        }
    })
    .done(function(response) {
        console.log(response);
    })
    .fail(function(error) {
        alert(error);
    })   
    .always(function() {
        console.log("complete");
    });
});

Console log prints:

{height: "598", success: true}

complete

I am a little unclear if/how I should be modifying the Success callback to reach my overall goal? Or if the wp_enqueue_script() dependencies need to be modified?

In case this helps, the following filter in PHP hooks into the storymaps-core.php file:

add_filter('storymaps_heights','set_map_height',10);

Where the following wp_enqueue_script resides:

function storymap_external_resources() {
    wp_enqueue_style( 'storymap-stylesheet', 'https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/storymapjs/latest/css/storymap.css' );
    wp_enqueue_script( 'storymap-javascript', 'https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/storymapjs/latest/js/storymap-min.js', array(), '1.0.0', false );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'storymap_external_resources' ); 

Any help on what to try next is much appreciated!