Updraft Category Archive: Radar

Dense fog to redevelop south, heavy snow to fall north and then immersed in cold

Posted at 3:26 PM on January 28, 2013 by Craig Edwards
Filed under: Cold, Forecast models, Radar, Snow, Snow cover, Winter storms

Heavy snow to fall over northern Minnesota tonight.

Dense fog and periods of drizzle, perhaps freezing drizzle, will hamper travel in much of the southern two-thirds of Minnesota and into Iowa and Wisconsin.

Check out the weather headlines across the nation. There is a lot of weather going on in the USA.

As the Spirit of St. Louis Airport checks in with sunshine and 74 F this afternoon, we peer out the window and gaze at snow cover and a persistent fog. Yes, temperatures are in the middle 70s in portions of Missouri this afternoon, while in our neck of the woods, a wintry mix is expanding in eastern North Dakota and west central Minnesota.

Unreal temperatures in Missouri this afternoon. Source: NOAA/NWS

Here is the developing snow that may be mixed with sleet and freezing rain this evening before changing to all snow overnight.

Screen capture regional radar 3:30 p.m. CST. Source: Weather Underground

As the precipitation develops through the evening it will spread into northern Minnesota depositing several inches overnight. A winter storm warning stretches from Detroit Lakes through Bemidji to International Falls into Tuesday morning.

Total snowfall in portions of northern Minnesota will range up to nine inches by 10 a.m. CST Tuesday.

Winter storm warning tonight.

NOAA's NCEP forecast of the most favored region to receive 8 or more inches of snow is outlined in green.

In the local Twin Cities Metro region, fog will thicken overnight and there will be periods of light drizzle, perhaps freezing in outlying ares. Be cautious when traveling later tonight and Tuesday morning.

On the heels of this mid-winter conundrum, a blast of arctic air will invade the upper Midwest on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Be prepared for bitter wind chill readings on Wednesday into Wednesday night.

Thursday and Friday mornings are likely to be well below zero over the state. The fresh snow cover over northern Minnesota is expected to enhance the overnight bone chilling cold.

Midnight Thursday temperature forecast from the NAM. Red color depicts surface temperatures approaching 30 below zero. Source:NOAA/College of Dupage

One final note: There is a risk of severe thunderstorms well to our south on Tuesday in the much warmer air mass. The Storm Prediction Center paints this region outlined in red in a moderate risk.

A moderation appears to be shaping up as we reach the weekend.

Craig Edwards

"Nuke Effect" Snow? Pennsylvania power plant spawns "nuclear" snow plume

Posted at 5:21 PM on January 23, 2013 by Paul Huttner (6 Comments)
Filed under: Radar

Just when I think I've seen everything.

Meteorologists have known for decades that waste plumes...the vented heat and moisture from power plants can produce clouds and showers downwind.

Now this phenomenon has been captured by Doppler radar.

"Nuke Effect" snow.

It appears Pennsylvania's Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant near Shippingport generated enough waste heat and moisture in this bitter air mass to create a "nuke effect" snow plume downwind. Up to an inch of snow was reported under the narrow, localized snow plume.

Here's the Doppler radar image from Pittsburgh showing the plume drifting downwind.

Image: Pittsburgh NWS doppler radar via Climate Central

How does this happen?

Enough additional heat and moisture is injected into the bitterly cold air overhead that clouds and snow crystals form in the plume. As the winds blow the plume downwind, the snowflakes fall out of the cloud base, leaving a narrow swath of snow underneath.

Kudos to Climte Central's Andrew Freedman for picking up on this remarkable radar image. He elaborates here.

You've probably heard of lake-effect snow and ocean-effect snow, but now you should add "nuclear snow" to the list of strange winter weather phenomena. As the Midwest and East shivers under a bitterly cold air mass, waste heat given off from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant near Shippingport, Pa., generated a narrow band of snow. Up to an inch of snow fell as a result of the steam billowing from the stacks.

The snowfall was also the result of steam vented from the Bruce Mansfield Generating Station, which is a coal-burning power plant that is located next to the nuclear facility in Shippingport.

Not to worry though, this snow should not contain elevated levels of radiation, and poses no danger to public health.

Pretty cool stuff.

PH

Overnight precipitation heading into Wisconsin; breezy western Minnesota

Posted at 6:45 AM on November 6, 2012 by Craig Edwards
Filed under: Forecast models, Radar, Rainfall

Precipitation spread from west to east overnight and is now confined to northeast Minnesota and far southeast Minnesota. Look for mainly dry weather across the state as we go through Election Day.

635 a.m. CST radar screen capture. Precipitation falling as snow mixed with some rain.
Source: NOAA/Weather Underground

Rain was steadily progressing across western Wisonsin this morning.

640 a.m. CST radar image depicting moderate rain in yellow.
Source:NOAA/Weather Underground

Happy to report that rainfall tallied more than a quarter inch in portions of the Twin Cities overnight. The Twin Cities International Airport measured 0.30 inches of rainfall. I captured nearly a quarter inch in my rain gauge at the Eden Prairie weather center.

Snow mixed with rain in northeast Minnesota delivered about two tenths of an inch of moisture.

NOAA Water Vapor Satellite image this just before sunrise shows the enhanced clouds from our weather maker moving into Wisconsin and Illinois. The storm that we have been monitoring to potentially effect the northeast US is just starting to take shape off the South Carolina coast.

Election Day temperatures in our neck of the woods will be seasonal, but expect gusty winds in western Minnesota through the afternoon.

Maximum temperatures for Tuesday. Source: NOAA/NWS

Winds will not be as gusty in eastern Minnesota today.

Source; NOAA/NWS

Currently there continues to be some slight differences in the model data for the northeast track of the storm along the east coast. Some agreement suggest that the center of lowest pressure will stay off shore as it skirts New York Wednesday night.

Pressure pattern and six hour precipitation at 1 a.m. EST Thursday morning from the NAM. Source: NOAA/NWS and College of Dupage

After a couple of quiet days things start to warm up and get interesting on Satuday as a storm system takes shape in Nebraska on Friday night. A surge of very warm air into Minnesota could trigger some showers and thunderstorms on Saturday.

Source: NOAA/College of Dupage.
Surface pressure and temperatures from GFS model for noon local time on Saturday. Note the sixty degree tempreratures over much of central and southern Minnesota.

Much cooler weather arrives on Sunday.

Craig Edwards

"Aug-tember" weekend; "Dual Pol's" 1st test; Are forecasters legally responsible?

Posted at 5:25 PM on August 17, 2012 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Radar

70s in most of MN this weekend - typical highs for early September

Warming trend early next week...80s return

Wet & thundery start?- for opening weekend of MN State Fair next weekend?

"Dual Pol" gets 1st test from Wednesday's hailstorm in Stevens County

Sue Me - Belgian city wants to sue private forecast firm for "pessimistic" summer outlook

Source: Twin Cities NWS

Weekend Forecast: Feels more like Labor Day

This should be a pretty nice weekend to get outside in Minnesota. The sweaty 90 to 100 degree days of July are out. In are cooler, comfortable, September-like days in the 70s this weekend.

While I can't rule out a few spotty "instability showers" this weekend, most of the weekend hours should be dry.

Source: Twin Cities NWS

High in the metro should hover in the mid 70s this weekend, about average for September 10th.

Warming trend next week:

Monday through Wednesday of next week look warmer, and probably dry. Minnesota will ride the back side of high pressure, and southwest winds will favor warmer breezes, and a return to the upper 70s and 80s Monday through Wednesday.

Source: Iowa State University

State fair 2012: Mostly tasty with a chance?

Prediction: It's going to be a good year to eat yourself silly at the 2012 Minnesota State Fair.

That said the GFS is still hinting at a low pressure system sliding through Minnesota Thursday & Friday, the opening 2 days of the fair. Latest trends point to a warm, and possibly thudnery Thursday, followed by a cooler wetter Friday.

Source: ISU

Temps may warm again the following week....then trends suggest a cooler air mass nosing in from Canada for Labor Day weekend.

Overall the CPC outlooks favor a wetter than average pattern for the 12 day Fair run.

Source: NOAA/CPC

Keep in mind that this is a long range outlook, and they are little better than 50% accuracy at 5-7 days. This outlook can, and probably will, change. Don't bet the farm on my forecast, or anything else that far out.

I can almost smell the roasted corn and Sweet Martha's Cookies drifting over the weather lab now. (By the way, who do we have to bribe to get the Milk Booth moved next door to Sweet Martha's Cookies anyway?)

Twin Cities NWS "Dual Pol" passes 1st test: Large hail in Swift County

The good folks at Twin Cities NWS seem pretty pleased after trotting out the new "Dual Polarization" doppler upgrade for the first time Wednesday.

The radar seemed to do a pretty good job gauging the large hail in cells in Swift County Wednesday afternoon.

The details from Twin Cities NWS:

The late afternoon of August 15th gave us the first opportunity to see the dual pol products in action during a severe thunderstorm as a strong cold front moving across the Dakotas that afternoon generated a very strong cell over eastern Traverse County that moved into northwest Stevens County, where it produced large hail west of the town of Donnelly. We received two hail reports that evening from northwest Stevens County:

0535 PM HAIL 3 W DONNELLY 45.70N 96.07W 08/15/2012 M1.75"(golf ball)
STEVENS MN TRAINED SPOTTER

0540 PM HAIL DONNELLY 45.69N 96.01W 08/15/2012 M1.00 INCH STEVENS MN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Source: Twin Cities NWS

Based on all of this information, the National Weather Service in the Twin Cities was able to issue an update to the active severe thunderstorm warning at 535 pm that mentioned the potential for tennis ball size hail with this storm. Although golf ball size hail was the largest hail reported, this spotter likely just missed the brunt of the hail core, where larger stones were likely falling. However, due to the sparse population of the part of Stevens County this hail core went over, we were unable to receive any hail reports from within the heart of this hail core. The remnants of this core eventually worked into northern sections of Morris, but by then the storm had weakened enough so that the largest hail being reported was only about the size of a quarter in diameter (1 inch).

The new Dual Pol also picked up an interesting feature called a "hail spike." Here's the lowdown from the Twin Cities NWS.

Source: Twin Cities NWS

In the radar images above, a long hail spike could be seen extending down radial from the hail core west of Donnelly, MN. In a nutshell here is what causes these spikes:

1. Energy from the radar intercepts a hail core
2. This energy is scattered in all directions by the hail core (energy coming straight back to the radar resulted in reflectivity values greater than 65 dBZ)
3. Some of the energy scattered by the hail core is scattered down to the ground
4. The ground then scatters some of this energy back to the hail core, which then scatters it back to the radar
5. The time delay in going from hail to ground and ground to hail back to the radar gives the radar the impression that this energy came from something farther from the radar
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 several times and you end up with a long reflectivity spike as seen in this example

Hail spikes begin to become common within Doppler radar imagery when the size of hail approaches and exceed 2 inches in diameter.

We'll be learning more about how to best use Dual Pol in the coming weeks and months. One area that may help us this winter is to see how well DP is able to discriminate between rain/ice/snow in winter.

Stay tuned.

Belgian town may sue over "pessimistic" seasonal forecast:

Yes we live in a litigious society, but this may be a bit over the top.

The mayor of one Belgian town want to sue a private forecast over what he calls a pessimistic seasonal forecast. NPR has the story.

The mayor of the Belgian seaside resort of Knokke says it's a crime that tourism there is down this year. He means that literally.

Leo Lippens wants to sue the private weather service Meteo Belgique for issuing a pessimistic full-summer forecast that he says wasn't "fair" because it didn't emphasize that the Belgian coast generally has clearer weather than the rest of the country.

"We all know we're not in the Cote d'Azur or southern Italy," he says. "But we have a fantastic climate here and to give the impression it is disgusting is disgusting and that I don't allow."

The private meteorological service forecast a while back that Belgium would have only two weeks of sunny weather in August.

Let's be honest, the weather was brutally cold and wet in most of northern Europe for most of the summer, and only improved just in time for the Olympics in London.

This weekend a heat wave is building north into Europe. Here are the details from the BBC.

Source: BBC Weather

Are weather forecasters legally responsible for long range forecasts?

It's a quiet weather day so if I may digress into a bit of a "weather editorial" here?

The "certainty" with which some meteorologists and forecast firms issue longer range and seasonal forecast is a problem in my opinion.

It brings back memories of Accuweather's blaringly inaccurate headlines last winter touting a burtal winter of cold and snow in the Midwest. Here's a (painfully inaccurate) excerpt:

In terms of both snow and cold, this winter is expected to be the worst in Chicago.

AccuWeather.com Long-Range Meteorologist Josh Nagelberg even went so far as to say, "People in Chicago are going to want to move after this winter."

However, for the worst of winter's cold alone, the AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team points to Minneapolis.

Source: Accuweather

Ooops.

These kind of "certain" declarations about seasonal forecasts, or inaccurate predictions of major snowstorms a week in advance or consecutive days of 90 degree heat a week ahead of time are "meteorological malpractice" in my opinion.

It's like doctor attempting a surgery he has no tools for, and telling the patient he can pull it off with ease. If the people who issue these kinds of forecasts were doctors or lawyers, they would lose their medical license or be disbarred.

The state of the science of meteorology just is not refined enough to make such declarations...and meteorologists who issue such forecasts make all of us look bad, and mislead the public about the credible limits of meteorology.

I don't mean to be sanctimonious here, and I get that this might sound that way. But I will admit this is a pet peeve of mine. I can be (have been, and will be again) as wrong as the next guy/gal about tomorrow's forecast. But I'm very careful about making "certain" forecasts I know extend the limits of "credible" meteorology.

We work in a competitive business and I get that weather people want headlines...want to be the first, biggest, and best weather guy/gal they can be in their market. And some forecasters and firms in our business have a financial interest in promoting a certain narrative or making forecasts that sound like "weather terrorism." Having a financial interest in what you're writing or "forecasting for headlines" may be many things, but it's not journalism, and readers need to understand that. When some in our business walk that road, it makes all of us look worse, and hurts everyone's credibility in a field where it's already a challenge to be a credible source for weather information.

Okay...this is me stepping off my little weather soap box now.

One question raised by the Belgian story and seasonal forecasts like Accuweather's last winter is; can you hold weather forecasters who make forecasts that outreach the capability of the current state of the science and forecast models legally responsible?

One of these days the courts may have something to say about that.

What do you think as a listener/reader & weather consumer?

PH

Minnesota crops better off than the nation; NWS completes "Dual Pol" upgrade

Posted at 4:41 PM on August 13, 2012 by Paul Huttner
Filed under: Crops, Drought, Radar

85% of Minnesota's corn crop in "fair-good or excellent" condition

92% of the "small grain" harvest complete (Oats, spring wheat & barley)

17% of small grains harvested last year at this time

50% of Minnesota topsoil rated "short or very short"

50% of Minnesota topsoil rated "adequate or surplus"

"Dual Pol" up and running - Twin Cities NWS completes Dual Polarization upgrade

Minnesota Crops: Island in the drought

It's a pretty good year for most Minnesota farmers in 2012. And for those that have a decent corn crop to sell, it's going to be a really good year with record corn prices.

A chunk of northwest and southwest Minnesota is still dealing with drought this year, and that is affecting some Minnesota farmers.

But the majority of Minnesota's corn and soybean crops are in pretty good condition according to Monday's Minnesota Crop Report.

Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows 35% of Minnesota in "drought>" You can see how drought conditions have been focuses in northwest, southwest and far southern Minnesota this summer.

Source: U.S. Drought Monitor

The bigger picture shows how lucky Minnesota has been in 2012.

We started out in drought in the spring, but ample spring rains lifted most of Minnesota from drought conditions, boosted lake levels and produced a bountiful crop.

The rest of the Midwest was not so lucky, and is suffering through the worst conditions since the 1930s in some areas. Withered corn has been plowed under in many areas of the Midwest.

Source: U.S. Drought Monitor

Much of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin has remained an oasis in the midst of drought in 2012.

Photo: NOAA courtesy Reid Wolcott

Up and Running: "Dual Pol" upgrade complete

The Twin Cities NWS has completed the upgrade to Dual Polarization at the Chanhassen NWS/Doppler site.

Radar data is flowing again, and the new upgrade should help us with precip intensity and differentiating between different winter precip types this winter.

The Doppler radar upgrade at your National Weather Service Forecast Office is complete. Although minor calibrations will be made in the coming days to ensure optimum accuracy, the upgrade is complete and radar data is now available.

•Better estimation of total precipitation amounts

•Better estimation of the size distribution of hydrometeors (raindrops, snowflakes, hailstones, drizzle)

•Much improved ability to identify areas of extremely heavy rainfall that are closely linked with flash floods

•Improved detection and mitigation of non-weather related radar echoes (chaff, smoke plumes, ground clutter)

•Easier identification of the melting layer (helpful for identifying snow levels in higher terrain)

•Improved ability to classify precipitation type

The full benefit of dual-pol radar, however, will not be fully realized until NWS forecasters and research meteorologists develop real-time expertise.

PH

Twin Cities NWS "Dual Pol" upgrade this week

Posted at 5:38 PM on August 6, 2012 by Paul Huttner (1 Comments)
Filed under: Radar

86F high at MSP Airport Monday

90F in Luverne Monday

62F in Grand Marias at 4pm Monday

"Dual Pol" Twin Cities NWS upgrading doppler this week

Rain chances increase by Wednesday

Source: Twin Cities NWS

Upgrading to "Dual Pol"

The Twin Cities NWS is upgrading the doppler to "Dual Polarization" this week. The change is part of a nationwide upgrade that will bring al the NEXRAD 88D dopplers into the Dual Pol era.

Dual polarization of doppler give both vertical and horizontal pulses and will increase resolution and detection of rainfall intensity, hail cores, and give us better estimates of snowfall intensity and winter precip types.

Current NWS Doppler Radar

Dual-Pol Radar

Here's the skinny from the Twin Cities NWS.

Beginning August 6, 2012, the Doppler radar at your National Weather Service Forecast Office will undergo an upgrade to incorporate new technology. While the work is being done, radar data will be unavailable from NWS Minneapolis! . The radar is scheduled to be unavailable for two weeks during this upgrade. Recently, though, technicians have been completing the upgrade in 5 to 6 days, and radar data will become available as soon as the upgrade is complete.

Dual pol will enhance our ability to see into clouds and differentiate drop sizes, spacing and precip types. More from NWS.

Current NWS Doppler radars transmit and receive pulses of radio waves in a horizontal orientation. As a result, the radar only measures the horizontal dimensions of targets (e.g. cloud and precipitation droplets). Dual-polarimetric radar transmits and receives pulses in both a horizontal and vertical orientation. Therefore, the radar measures both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of targets. Since the radar receives energy from horizontal and vertical pulses, we can obtain better estimates of the size, shape, and variety of targets. It is expected that this will result in significant improvements in the estimation of precipitation rates, the ability to discriminate between precipitation types (e.g. hail vs. rain), and the identification of non-meteorological returns, such as chaff, ground clutter, and smoke plumes from wildfires that are not uncommonly detected by weather radar systems such as WSR-88D.

•Better estimation of total precipitation amounts

•Better estimation of the size distribution of hydrometeors (raindrops, snowflakes, hailstones, drizzle)

•Much improved ability to identify areas of extremely heavy rainfall that are closely linked with flash floods

•Improved detection and mitigation of non-weather related radar echoes (chaff, smoke plumes, ground clutter)

•Easier identification of the melting layer (helpful for identifying snow levels in higher terrain)

•Improved ability to classify precipitation type

The full benefit of dual-pol radar, however, will not be fully realized until NWS forecasters and research meteorologists develop real-time expertise.

Still want more? Here's the (substantially cheesey) video from NOAA.

PH

Hail pummels parts of southern and central Minnesota

Posted at 6:38 AM on May 3, 2012 by Craig Edwards (1 Comments)
Filed under: Radar, Rainfall, Severe weather, Thunderstorms

The corridor from near New Ulm to Zumbrota was clobbered with hail up to two and a half inches in diameter late Wednesday afternoon. Ouch! And Tuesday's storms brought large hail on a swath from Sauk Centre to near Princeton on the order of two inches in diameter.

Storm reports from NWS Chanhassen. Check out previous versions.

Wednesday's storm reports. Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center

In a separate overnight storm, Milan, in Chippewa County, reported two inch diameter hail.

More storms at daybreak were producing large hail southeast of Fergus Falls. These storms were racing quickly east toward Brainerd and St. Cloud

Raindrops violently tossed in the updrafts of thunderstorms can accumulate ice layers in the cold air in the middle and upper layers of the atmosphere. Tops of the thunderstorms on Wednesday afternoon were above 40,000 feet in southern Minnesota. Commercial aircraft top out at that level for their cruising altitude.

This graphic from Weatherunderground depicts the accumulated precipitation beginning May 2nd and ending at 630 a.m. CDT. Note the track of severe storms in the brighter yellow and orange. These storms produced heavy rainfall as well as large hail. Two and a half inches of rain fell in a short time yesterday afternoon eight miles northwest of New Ulm. Nearly two inches of rain was measured at Zumbrota.

Source:Weatherunderground.com

Lighter rainfall occurred in the Minnesota Arrowhead region in the past 24 hours.

The Minnesota State Climate Office released the hydrological update yesterday. You can read the entire report here.

Recent moisture has helped put a dent in the drought, but there are still areas that need moisture to recover from the seven-month deficit. From the report:

April 2012 precipitation totals were above normal in portions of west central, north central, and northeast Minnesota. Elsewhere, monthly precipitation totals were near the historical average. It was only the second month since July 2011 where monthly precipitation totals were near to above average.

Periods of showers and thunderstorms are in the weather picture through the weekend. Here's the potential rainfall for the next three days.

Source: NOAA NCEP

--Craig Edwards

Excessive rains possible, preview was Saturday evening

Posted at 6:37 AM on June 20, 2011 by Craig Edwards
Filed under: Radar, Rainfall, Record

Watching the radar from the Target Field weather lab on Saturday evening it was clear the heavy rain was setting up over western Wisconsin. Here's a graphic provided by the Chanhassen National Weather Service of the radar estimated rainfall for the event.

Click on image to enlarge. The small purple pixel represents an estimate of around six inches for the period 7am CDT Saturday to 7am CDT on Sunday

Eau Claire Airport reported 4.74 inches of rain on Saturday evening. LaCrosse measured 4.50 inches. Both of these totals were daily records.

A meteorological summary of the deluge has been posted on the NWS Chanhassen website. See details.

Thankfully we were able to salvage a pretty decent Sunday. This upcoming week, particularly the next three days will be soggy at the least and perhaps downright dangerously wet in some locations.

A very slow moving, spring-like weather system will track through the upper Midwest. The snail pace from west to east will place Minnesota, as well as the eastern Dakotas and western Wisconsin in a prime region for heavy rainfall.

Here's NOAA's Environmental Prediction Center's estimate for rainfall accumulations in the next seventy-two hours.

This graphic gives a general sense of the most likely region for heavy rain. Isolated totals similar to Saturday evening's rain in western Wisconsin are very possible.

Have time to probe beneath the headlines? Here's a great link on the meteorologist's insight on the upcoming heavy rainfall, courtesy of the National Weather Service in Chanhassen.

After enduring this drenching, we can look forward to the prospects of some warmer and drier weather next week. Here's the Climate Prediction Center's temperature outlook for the next eight to fourteen days. Odds favor above normal temperatures.

The Climate Prediction Center's precipitation outlook for the period June 27 to July 3rd, indicates the odds favor less than normal precipitation in our neck of the woods.

By the way the radar is already lit-up in Iowa and far southern Minnesota this morning. The deluge is at hand.
CE

Buffalo Ridge visible on doppler radar

Posted at 8:16 AM on July 12, 2010 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Radar, Remote sensing

You know the weather is quiet when we're tracking wind farms on the Buffalo Ridge on doppler radar.

That's the image this morning from the NWS radar at Sioux Falls. You can see the bright yellow line extending from northwest to southeast near Tyler, Minnesota.

Buffalo Ridge visible as bright yellow band northeast of Sioux Falls radar site this morning.

The radar returns are likely wind generation towers on the ridge, and or the ridge itself. The reason you can see the ridge today is that atmospheric conditions are right for superrefraction or ducting, a bending of the radar beam to follow the earth's curvature.

The bending beam hits the high terrain fo the Buffalo Ridge and bounces back to the radar site. Note how the showers in Iowa are moving, but the Buffalo Ridge returns do not.

Rotating turbines from wind farms can cause issues with severe storm detection. NWS has an outreach program to wind energy producers to work on the best placing for wind farms relative to doppler radar sites.

Warm July:

So far July temperatures are running 5.2 degrees above average in the metro. The coolest day before today was 83 degrees on Sunday. Every other day has been at least 85 degrees, with a 92 degree high on the 3rd. This marks the 5th consecutive month of above average temperatures in the metro.

It's interesting to note that while it's been warmer than average, we've only recorded 4 days at or above 90 degrees. The yearly average for MSP is about 13 days, so we're running a little below average when it comes to extreme heat.

Warmest days of the year:

The average high in the Twin Cities hits 84 degrees tomorrow, and will stay there until July 27th. This time period marks the warmest average high of the year in the Twin Cities and other Minnesota locations. Climatologically speaking, we are now moving into the warmest two to four weeks of the year in Minnesota.

Cool start Monday:

Monday morning's cooler low temperatures were the coolest in nearly two weeks in Minnesota. The Twin Cities bottomed out at 61, with 40s in several northeast Minnesota locations.

The push of cooler air also features much drier air with comfortable dew points in the 40s and 50s. Enjoy the free air conditioning and the respite form the heat and humidity!

PH