Updraft: February 3, 2010 Archive

Forecast: Bright sun today, snow Thursday night

Posted at 8:33 AM on February 3, 2010 by Paul Huttner

Enjoy tranquil weather today. NWS weather story hints at the changes ahead starting Thursday night.

Something happened today for the first time in a long time.

The sun beamed brightly on the wall in the Huttner Weather Lab during my 7:48am weather chat with Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition today. With a Twin Cities sunrise now at 7:30am, it's nice to see the sun peeking up during the morning weather chat.

Today's sunshine is a welcome break between weather systems. Chimney smoke plumes drift toward the north this morning, a sign that changes are already occurring in the atmosphere over Minnesota. The wind flow is turning southerly ahead of our next weather system.

The next wave in a progressive upper wind pattern will suck moisture northward on those southerly winds by Thursday night, Low clouds, fog and even some freezing drizzle is lurking in Kansas today, and that moisture is only about 24 hours away.

Surface map shows high pressure over the Upper Midwest today. Note the moisture lurking in Kansas and Oklahoma. Southerly flow will transport moisture north into Minnesota Thursday.

As the next wave moves in it will pull the moisture, and some milder air our way. After mid-20s today, look for temperatures to crack 30 Thursday and Friday. We may even touch the thawing point Thursday or Friday.

Mixed precipitation and snow should break out late Thursday in southwest Minnesota and spread east Thursday night. Early indications are it could snow most of Friday anywhere south of Brainerd.

The best chance for several inches (up to 6"?) appears to be in southwest Minnesota by Friday night. I will tweak amounts tomorrow, but the early indication is that the The Twin Cities metro appears to be in line for 2" to 4" of wetter, heavier moisture laden snow. This will not be the arctic fluff we saw Monday. You may even be able to make a snowball out of Friday's snow.

Forecast models crank out more snow Friday for the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota.(Click on image for a bigger view)

We get a break on Saturday before the next wave spins south out of Canada. Models have backed off a bit on snow amounts for Super Sunday, but let's wait and see where we are after our first system spins through Friday.

In the meantime, enjoy the bright sun today in your "weather lab!"

PH

Snow Sparkles: More on the way

Posted at 4:12 PM on February 3, 2010 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)

Snow cystals sparkle like diamonds in a pristine winter scene at the Huttner Weather Lab today.
(Photos by Paul Huttner. Click on photo for a larger image.)

Think of all the people in the world who have never seen snow. Then take a look at these pictures of our stunning Minnesota winter landscape today. I know winter can be a drag this time of year, but you have to appreciate the amazing beauty that a snow covered landscape and bright sun creates.

Look at how the crystalline form of the snowflakes below play with the sunlight. You can see the individual snow crystals. We often see snowcover as one big blanket on the winter landscape. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see it's made up of millions (billions?) of individual crystals.

The infinite number of perfect yet varied snow crystals on the ground play with the sunlight in a million different ways. It's called reflection and refraction in physics. We might just call it magical.

Sun glints through ice crystals on trees this morning.

Snowflakes may be as close to creation as we can come on this earth.

Hopefully you can appreciate the beauty of our winterscape these February days. If you can that's good, because there's more snow on the way by late tomorrow into Friday!

PH

(3 Comments)