Updraft: June 11, 2012 Archive
Instant September; Noisy cold front brings storms & wind damage
Posted at 8:51 AM on June 11, 2012
by Paul Huttner
93 degrees at MSP Airport Sunday
5th day at or above 90 degrees so far in 2012 (June 10th)
July 1st - 5th day of 90 degree heat in MSP last year
+6.7 degrees vs. average at MSP so far in June
13th straight month of above average temps
Wind damage in the metro Sunday night - numerous trees down
Instant September: Much drier and cooler early this week
Source: Twin Cities NWS
Noisy cold front: Storms & damage Sunday night
Sunday night's cold front left a mark on Minnesota that included a lot of lightning, thunder, heavy rain and wind.
Numerous reports of wind damage poured into the Twin Cities NWS. High winds downed many trees around the metro in Excelsior, Lakeville, Burnsville. The highest concentration of damage appears to be in Highland Park in St. Paul, where numerous trees snapped and fell on fences, cars and clogged streets.
Source: Twin Cities NWS
Check out these photos from Bill Stein, a HP resident who snapped these early Monday morning in and around Highland Park.
Tree down on Prius in Highland Park
Photo by Bill Stein
Photo by Bill Stein
Tree vs. fence
Photo by Bill Stein
You can see Bill's write up on his "Minnesota Forecaster" web page.
Bill reports most of the trees fell in a uniform line from southwest to northeast, which suggests straight line wind damage. Circular "tornadic" winds usually cause damage patterns pointing in several different directions.
Instant September: Free AC
The cold front brings temps 15 to 20 degrees cooler today & Tuesday. After 3 consecutive days of 90 degree heat in the metro, temps in the 70s south and 60s north will feel like September. At least you can give your AC a rest for a while this week.
Source: NWS
I can't rule out some lows in the 30s and spotty frost in northern Minnesota Tuesday morning!
Dew points crash too:
Dew points (briefly) peaked at 67 degrees Sunday in the metro. The deep tropical dew points in the 70s some of the models advertised last week never made it to Minnesota.
Still the air mass working into Minnesota is much drier early this week. Dew points will dive into the 40s and even upper 30s in Minnesota by Tuesday.
Source: ISU
Much needed rainfall:
The storms dumped rainfall totals near or over 1" in many locations around the metro last night.
Rainfall totals over 1" from last night in yellow
Source: WxUnderground
"Bermuda High" setting up this weekend?
Forecast models are advertising a developing "Bermuda High" in the Upper Midwest this weekend.
The high pressure center should develop Friday between MSP and Chicago, and build Saturday & Sunday.
The means a return to heat and humidity by the weekend.
Storms may fire around the periphery of the high by Sunday. That could mean a repeat of last weekend and another thundery close to next weekend.
Enjoy the cooler breezes today!
PH
AC to heat in 36 hours? Patchy frost north; "Ring of Fire" weekend?
Posted at 5:11 PM on June 11, 2012
by Paul Huttner
93 Sunday PM in the metro
40s blankets for sleeping, furnaces kicking in by Tuesday morning?
86 degrees in Ely at 4:33pm Sunday
39 degrees in Ely and patchy frost by 6am Tuesday
47 degrees - temps plunge nearly 50 degrees in just over 36 hours?
Dry spell ends - Sunday night rains end a 12 day dry spell in most of Minnesota
Free AC:
Talk about a change of air masses!
I often blather on about how Minnesota sits in the middle of the North American continent (there's some scintillating party conversation) as air masses freely sweep through the Upper Midwest.
There are no mountains nearby to obstruct or protect us from tropical air masses from the Gulf of Mexico or chilly dry Canadian winds from the north.
Source: NOAA
The result? Hot windy weekends punctuated by raucous thunderstorms out breaks as the two air masses collide and battle for supremacy over Minnesota.
The Canadian air has won the latest round, at least until Wednesday. Later this week, a warmer more humid air mass will gradually ooze north again. That means warmer days, and a return to scattered thunderstorms.
Enjoy the free AC for now, and manage the windows accordingly to avoid waking up with a chill early Tuesday morning!
From AC to Frost up north?
86 in Ely Sunday must have felt great for early season BWCA trippers with thousands of still chilly lakes & sparkling bays to jump into and cool off. Hopefully they brought the good sleeping bags along too.
Temps will dip into the upper 30s from Grand Forks to Ely Tuesday morning. With low dew points, light winds and clear skies, scattered frost is quite possible.
Source: NWS
So is it unusual to get frost this late in the year up north? Not really. A good look at the map below shows frost is possible late into June in the colder nooks and crannies "up north."
Source: MN Climate Working Group
"Ring of Fire" this weekend?
I talked about the "Bermuda High" and what it means for Minnesota in this morning's Updraft post.
One feature that often rides the western edge of the Bermuda High in summer is the meteorologically infamous "Ring of Fire."
Source: stormcentral1st.com
The Ring of Fire is a weather pattern that favors heavy T-Storms that fire along the periphery of the Bermuda High. As cooler air bumps into the hot, humid dome of high pressure, storms tend to blow up and ride along the edge of the Bermuda High. These so called "ridge runners" can be severe, and often pack high winds and hail.
Long lived wind storms called "derecheos" can also sweep along the ring of fire. Several famous "blow down" events are the result of derecheos that sweep around the ring of fire.
The infamous "BWCA Blowdown" of July 4th 1999 was a derecheo that raced around the ring of fire for more than 48 hours.
Source: NOAA/SPC
The BWCA monster derecheo travelled 6,000 miles! That may be the longest recorded path length for a derecheo.
Meteorologically speaking, derecheos are defined by three things.
-A path length of at least 250 miles.
-At least 3 reports of hurricane force (74 mph) winds separated by at least 40 miles.
-No more than 3 hours between damaging wind events.
There have been other accounts of so called "trans-continental derecheos" in the past. Some have travelled over 1,000 miles.
As high pressure builds in this weekend over the eastern and central USA, Minnesota looks to be on the western edge. That could put us in the infamous and stormy "Ring of Fire."
Stay tuned!
PH
| June 2012 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
Master Archive
Recent Entries
- Moore "Super Tornado": Radar shows "hook echo" and "debris ball"
- "May-soon" continues; More scattered rain & T-Storms today; Slight severe risk
- MPR Weather Live Blog: Metro severe threat fades; Chance of rain overnight
- Tornado Watch until 9pm includes the Twin Cities
- 1st MN Tornado of 2013; Sun, rain & thunder; Record late Mille Lacs ice out
- "May Monsoon" moves in; Warm thundery weekend mixes sun & rain; Ice out up north
- Weather perfection today; rain & thunder Friday morning; mixed weekend
- Springtacular Thursday; "May Monsoon" starts Friday; 3"+ rainfall by Tuesday?
- Record setting heat gives way to more normal conditions
- A day of record toasty weather
Categories
- 2010 highlights
- 2011 highlights
- Arctic Sea Ice
- Astronomy
- Aurora
- Baseball
- Blizzard
- Climate
- Climate Cast
- Climate change
- Cold
- Crops
- Crow River
- Daylight
- dew point
- Drought
- Earthquakes
- El Nino
- Fall
- Fall color
- Fire
- Fire weather
- Flooding
- Forecast models
- Freezing rain
- Frost
- Gravity waves
- Growing season
- Gulf oil spill
- Halloween Mega Storm 1991
- Heat
- Heat bursts
- Hockey
- Hurricanes
- Ice
- Ice out
- Indian Summer
- Japan disaster 2011
- La Nina
- Lake effect snow
- Lake Superior
- Lakes
- Land Hurricane 2010
- Live blog
- Meteors
- Microclimates
- Minnesota River
- Mississippi River
- Monsoon
- Mosquitoes
- NOAA
- Northern lights
- NWS
- Phenology
- Pollen
- Radar
- Rainfall
- Record
- Red River
- Remote sensing
- Renewable energy
- SAD
- Seasonal forecasting
- Severe weather
- SKYWARN
- Snow
- Snow cover
- Space Shuttle/ISS
- Space weather
- Spring 2012
- Springtime
- St. Croix River
- State Fair
- Storms
- Summer
- Sunsets 2011
- Target Field
- Thunderstorms
- Tornadoes
- Tsunami
- TV weather
- Urban Heat Island
- Volcanoes
- VORTEX2
- Warm fronts
- Warnings
- Water
- Weather history
- Weather Watchers
- Weekend
- White Christmas
- Wildfires
- Winter
- Winter 2011-12
- Winter 2012-13
- Winter storms
- Winter/spring 2011
Services
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock