53 F. high in the Twin Cities Friday.
61 F. average high on October 10.
78 F. high on October 10, 2013.
Airport Weather
Did
you wake up to frost Friday morning? I did, and many others in the
immediate metro area awoke to a carpet of white. Yet the official low at
MSP International Airport was 35F.
Keep in mind the temperature
sensor is 5-6 feet above the ground, and on a clear, calm night
temperatures at lawn-level can easily be 2-5F colder.
Which brings
up a forecasting quandary for meteorologists. All the local "Almanac"
information (high, low, precipitation) is based on what happens at the
airport. Technically nobody lives at the airport, at least not
intentionally, but what happens there becomes the official record for
MSP. So do you predict weather for the airport, or the downtowns, or the
suburbs? Giving one number (temperature, snowfall, etc) is a short-cut.
As the saying goes your results may vary.
Fall
color is peaking just outside the metro and a fine weekend is shaping
up. Early frost gives way to upper 50s today; a shot at 60F Sunday as
clouds increase. Any showers should hold off until after the Vikings
game. Monday looks like the wettest day of the week, followed by a slow
warming trend.
Expect a run of 60s next week, with a mild bias into late October.
I can live with that.
Not Bad For Mid-October.
Next week the sun will be as high in the sky as it was in late
February. A lack of snowcover and relatively warm lakes will result in
temperatures far milder than anything we've seen in late February; a
streak of 60s late next week into next weekend. Today will be the
sunnier day of this weekend; winds increase tomorrow, along with a
chance of showers late Sunday into Monday.
60-Hour Rainfall.
An atmospheric tug-of-war sets off a smear of heavy rain from near
Denver to Kansas City, Louisiville and Philadelphia as an area of low
pressure ripples eastward along a sharp temperature boundary. California
remains bone-dry, but showers spread into the Pacific Northwest by
Sunday. 4 km accumulated rainfall product: NOAA and HAMweather.
Peaking Fall Color.
This will be the weekend to check out ripening leaves from Alexandria
Lakes to the Brainerd Lakes area, much of northern Minnesota and the Red
River Valley already past peak. My hunch is that metro trees will peak
in the next 7-8 days, peak color along the Mississippi River is still
1-2 weeks away. Source: Minnesota DNR.
Changing Day Length Effects on Daily Temperature. Here's a clip from the latest installment of
Minnesota WeatherTalk, courtesy of Dr. Mark Seeley: "...
As
we continue to lose daylight hours this month, you may notice an
increase in the daily temperature range. Though the sun will heat the
dry landscape substantially during the day (as we have seen this week),
the longer nights allow for more cooling to occur, dropping the
overnight lows to a greater degree than just a month ago. This produces a
larger daily temperature range in the absence of significant cloud
cover (note many observers reported a 30-35 degrees F temperature rise
on Monday, October 6th)..."
First Freeze.
The map above shows the median date of the first 32F freeze, based on
30 year averages since 1981. The growing season typically ends by
mid-September up north, closer to October 5-10 near Rochester, Winona
and La Crosse. Source: Midwestern Regional Climate Center.
66% Probability of Mild El Nino.
NOAA CPC is now predicting a mild El Nino warming phase of the Pacific
setting in by November or December and lasting into spring of 2015.
Statistically, this would tend to favor a somewhat milder winter for
much of the Lower 48 states than what we endured last year. Here's an
excerpt from
NOAA: "...
The
consensus of forecasters indicates a 2-in-3 chance of El Nino during
the November 2014 - January 2015 season. This El Nino will likely remain
weak (3-month values of the Nino-3.4 index between .5C and .9C).
throughout its duration. In summary, El Nino is favored to begin in the
next 1-2 mmonths and last into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2015..."
Study Says Gulf and East Coasts May See Tripling of Flood Events By 2030. Rising seas are compounding coastal flood potential; here's an excerpt from
VICE News: "...
Over
the next 30 years, King Tide-like conditions might become the "new
normal" as "more tidal flooding is virtually guaranteed," according to
a report
by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). UCS analyzed flooding in 52
coastal communities, from Maine to Texas, and found that many of these
areas now experience dozens of tidal floods per year, up to four times
the number of tidal flooding days as occurred in 1970. By 2030,
two-thirds of these communities are likely to see at least triple the
number of high tide floods annually, says UCS..."
File photo: Virginia Department of Transportation.
Decade of Destruction: The Wrath of 15 Hurricanes In One Infographic. Here's an excerpt from an interesting story (and terrific infographic) from
Capital Weather Gang: "...
The Master of Public Administration program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created the infographic
below that summarizes the overwhelming toll of these storms which
collectively claimed over 2,000 lives, destroyed millions of homes, and
cost $310 billion. Incredibly, the last “major” hurricane – ranked
category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale – to make landfall in
this stretch was Wilma in 2005. The storms thereafter were “only”
category 1 and 2s, yet still left damages in the billions of dollars..."
Six Super-Typhoons In The Western Pacific So Far in 2014. 19 named storms, 9 typhoons, and 6 of those have reached super-typhoon status, according to an update at
Decoded Science; here's an excerpt: "
The
western Pacific Ocean has had an active typhoon season: 19 storms have
been named, nine becoming typhoons, and six Super-Typhoons with winds
over 150 miles per hour. The latest, Vongfong, became the strongest with
winds of 180 miles per hour on Tuesday, and is on the same path as last
week’s Typhoon Phanfone which raked the Japanese coast and passed
directly over Tokyo..."
Wisconsin City Votes To Get Rid of Tornado Sirens.
I know sirens are expensive to maintain, and a switchover to text
alerts sure sounds like a good idea, assuming everyone is walking around
Antigo, WI with a smart phone and everyone has the capacity to receive
text alerts. Until that day comes I'm not sure about this one; here's an
excerpt from
local8now.com: "
The
Antigo City Countil voted Thursday night to do away with its two
traditional tornado sirens and switch to a text alert system. The
Langade County Emergency Management Director says the warning system
needs at least $35,000 worth of upgrades to continue functioning, in
addition to adding another one..."
The Suicide Crisis. Kudos to
USA Today
for running a series on America's silent epidemic, the second greatest
cause of death for young people. Here's an excerpt from Part 1 of 4
painful, yet critically important chapters within the larger narrative.
It's worth a read: "...
Americans are far more likely to kill
themselves than each other. Homicides have fallen by half since 1991,
but the U.S. suicide rate keeps climbing. The nearly 40,000 American
lives lost each year make suicide the nation's 10th-leading cause of
death, and the second-leading killer for those ages 15-34. Each suicide
costs society about $1 million in medical and lost-work expenses and
emotionally victimizes an average of 10 other people. Yet a national
effort to stem this raging river of self-destruction — 90% of which
occurs among Americans suffering mental illness — is in disarray..."
TODAY: Early frost. Blue sky, fine fall day. Winds: S 5-10. High: 59
FRIDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear, probably frost-free. Low: 41
SUNDAY: Early sun, clouds increase, late PM showers. High: 61
MONDAY: Periods of rain, soggiest day of the week. Wake-up: 50. High: 55
TUESDAY: Getting sunnier, quite pleasant. Wake-up: 44. High: 63
WEDNESDAY: Sunny and spectacular. Wake-up: 41. High: 65
THURSDAY: Mix of clouds and sun. Wake-up: 47. High: 62
FRIDAY: Partly sunny, not bad at all. Wake-up: 48. High: 64
Climate Stories...
"The
sceptic of the bogus variety cherry-picks evidence on the basis of a
pre-existing belief, seizing on data, however tenuous, that supports his
position, and yet declaring himself "
sceptical”
of any evidence, however compelling, that undermines it’
. Such an approach has become typical of those who deny the scientifi
c consensus on anthropogenic climate change and devolve quickly into conspiracies instead."
Our Planet Is Going to Blow Past The "Two Degrees" Climate Limit. Here's a clip from a story at
New Republic: "...
This
call to nix the two-degrees metric has spurred a backlash from the
climate-science establishment, and, more importantly, it raises big
financial questions for companies and consumers worldwide. If the
two-degrees goal changes, then so might the many climate policies framed
around it—policies that translate into costs
for polluters and profitable markets for clean-energy providers. At
stake in this fight over a couple of degrees is potentially billions of
dollars..."
The $9.7 Trillion Problem: Cyclones and Climate Change.
An estimated 35 percent of the world's 7 billion people live in the
potential path of cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons, etc). Here's an
excerpt from
Climate Central: "
You
can do a lot with $9.7 trillion: buy all the real estate in Manhattan
12 times over, purchase 22 carbon copies of Apple, or an absurd quantity
of apples. It’s also the amount of money that tropical cyclones
could cost the global economy over the next century, especially if
climate projections of fewer but more intense cyclones are accurate. In
comparison to those losses, the cost of action to reduce emissions and
beef up coastal preparedness is relatively cheap say researchers..."
Why Climate Change Litigation Could Soon Go Global. Canada's
Globe and Mail
has an intriguing story, one that should give trial lawyers a cheap
thrill. Class action lawsuits down the road? Count on it. Here's an
excerpt that caught my eye: "...
Canadian oil and gas companies could
soon find themselves on the hook for at least part of the damage. For
as climate change costs increase, a global debate has begun about who
should pay. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu recently called on
global leaders to hold those responsible for climate damages
accountable. “Just 90 corporations – the so-called carbon majors – are
responsible for 63 per cent of CO2 emissions since the industrial
revolution,” Tutu said. “It is time to change the profit incentive by
demanding legal liability for unsustainable environmental practices...”
Coal, Not Fracking, Blamed For U.S. Methane Hot Spot.
Bloomberg has the story - here's an excerpt: "...
The
gas measured in the study comes from leaks in processing equipment.
Environmental groups have pushed Obama to regulate methane leaks as
drilling using hydraulic fracturing has boomed. Eric Kort, the paper’s
lead researcher, said it’s a mistake to focus only on fracking rather
than existing industries. The results indicate “that emissions from
established fossil fuel harvesting are greater than inventoried,” Kort,
an atmospheric researcher at the University of Michigan, said in the
statement. “There’s been so much attention on high-volume hydraulic
fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole.” Natural
gas is about 98 percent methane, according to NASA,
which assisted in the study. While less long-lived than carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, methane is about 25 times more potent in trapping
heat..."
Image credit above: "NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan. "
The
Four Corners area (red) is the major U.S. hot spot for methane
emissions in this map showing how much emissions varied from average
background concentrations from 2003-2009 (dark colors are lower than
average; lighter colors are higher)"
Republicans Have No Idea What They Believe About Climate Change.
Can you get elected as a Republican who acknowledges science and the
reality of man-made climate change? Not sure, probably not, at least not
today. Here's a clip from a story at Salon: "...
According to
Bloomberg, McCain’s current position is the one most Republicans have
found themselves caught in: believing that not much is going to happen,
legislatively, to make a significant difference in greenhouse gas
emissions. So they’re better off, the thinking goes, keeping the Tea
Party happy by bowing out of the debate entirely — by trying to change
the subject, by using their lack of scientific degree to disqualify them
from stating an opinion and by hedging, avoiding, at all costs, that
yes-or-no question. But here’s the problem for these politicians:
400,000 people marching in the streets of New York say leaders can no longer ignore the issue and hope it goes away..."
Moon and Rain Prove Global Warming Isn't Real. Leave it to
Wonkette to tee up a little well-timed parody.
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