68 F. average high on May 12.
58 F. high temperature on May 12, 2015.
May 13, 1872: A hailstorm hits Sibley County. Hail up to the size of pigeon eggs is reported. Lightning burns down a barn near Sibley, killing a horse tied up inside.
Frosty Possibilities by Sunday - Chilly Opener
First, the good news: no murderous EF-4 tornadoes looming. No beach ball-size hail on Doppler. No spring floods or raging wildfires on the horizon.
It can always be worse.
Refresh my tired memory: are you supposed to wait until after Mother's Day or Memorial Day to plant annuals?
The rumors are true: some emerging plants and flowers may freeze their buds off this weekend. Canadian winds stirring behind today's sloppy band of showers will keep temperatures in the 40s today and Saturday. If skies clear and winds ease by Sunday morning a light frost may settle on outlying suburbs. If in doubt cover them up, bring them indoors, or write them off.
Fishing Opener weather Saturday will feel like something out of late October, with scrappy clouds and a whiff of wind chill. The sun comes out Sunday with a string of 60s restoring your faith in a Minnesota May next week.
Our weather resembles a car swerving down I-35: from 92F last Friday to patchy frost Sunday morning to 70s, 80s and strong T-storms the weekend of May 21-22 there's something for almost everyone in the 7-Day Outlook.
* 2-meter temperatures valid 7 am, courtesy of 4 KM NAM from NOAA and AerisWeather.
Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters in 2015. Here's a highlight of a recent summary from NOAA: "In 2015, there were 10 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included a drought event, 2 flooding events, 5 severe storm events, a wildfire event, and a winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 155 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980–2015 annual average is 5.2 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2011–2015) is 10.8 events (CPI-adjusted). Further cost figures on individual events in 2015 will be updated when data are finalized..."
Image credit: "The following graphic shows the relationship between the median number of named storms predicted each year by those three sources and the actual number of named storms in the Atlantic."
Rains Hamper Planting: Southwest Minnesota, Northwest Iowa Lag Behind Their State. Following up on Kevin's comments above, here's the intro to a story at The Worthington Daily Globe: "Area farmers grew accustomed to praying for timely rains during the past several years. Now, they’re praying for sunshine and some wind to dry up the fields so they can get their crops planted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service released its weekly crop progress report Monday afternoon, and it noted that 89 percent of the state’s corn crop and 46 percent of its soybean crop was planted. That’s not the case, however, in the southwest corner of the state, where ponds are still visible in some fields and the week’s weather forecast calls for chances of rain nearly every day..."
Photo credit above: "A rural Rushmore farmer plants corn Sunday on ground, dry enough to work up and plant between rains." Tim Middagh/Daily Globe.
Severe Weather Outbreaks are Spawning More Tornadoes. Natural variation or symptoms of additional heating and instability associated with warming? Here's an excerpt of an interesting post at WXshift: "...Observations over the past few decades have yielded an interesting trend. While there are fewer days with tornadoes, there are more tornadoes on those days. Because there have been changes in how tornadoes are reported and detected, researchers eliminated the weakest tornado classification on the Enhanced Fujita scale known as EF0 tornadoes (or F0 before 2007 on the original Fujita scale). Since the early 1970s, the average annual number of days with at least one EF1 or stronger tornado has dropped from 150 to 100. Yet, there has been an increase in the number of days with a very high number of tornadoes. In the 1970s, the average number of days with more than 30 EF1 or stronger tornadoes was a fraction less than one, meaning they weren’t even a yearly occurrence on average. In the last decade, that number had jumped to three days each year..."
Image credit: "While there are fewer days each year with tornadoes, on average, the number of days with more than 30 tornadoes is increasing." Credit: Climate Central
5 Things You Need to Know About Tornadoes. Here's an excerpt from The National Science Foundation: "...Tornadoes usually occur in association with particular types of severe storms, such as supercells and squall lines, called tornado parental storms. But not all these parental storms generate tornadoes. Tornadogenesis, as the formation of tornadoes is called, remains the “holy grail” of tornado research. Recent work suggests that the temperature of the outflow air from the parent thunderstorm could play a critical role. There is a lot we don’t yet understand, including the circumstances that produce tornado outbreaks..."
Photo credit above: "Image of a strong tornado near Arab, Alabama, part of the outbreak on April 27, 2011." Credit: Charles Whisenant.
- Information management — including sharing information among agencies — is critical. The city was doing damage assessments, FEMA was processing requests for individual assistance and other agencies were responding to survivors’ needs. “Being able to coordinate all of that so that residents don’t get assessed and visited multiple times and so that it’s clear what the needs are in the community” is critical, Meschuk said. “We’re working through that, and it’s going to be a long-term process...”
Map credit: WSJ, Rutgers University's School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; OceanAdapt.
Air Pollution Rising at an "Alarming Rate" in World's Cities. Here's a clip from a story at The Guardian: "Outdoor
air pollution has grown 8% globally in the past five years, with
billions of people around the world now exposed to dangerous air, according to new data
from more than 3,000 cities compiled by the World Health Organisation
(WHO). While all regions are affected, fast-growing cities in the Middle
East, south-east Asia and the western Pacific are the most impacted
with many showing pollution levels at five to 10 times above WHO
recommended levels..."
Map credit above: "Annual
mean concentration of fine particulate matter (2.5 micrometres or less)
in micrograms per cubic metre for 3,000 towns and cities around the
world."
* The report at The World Health Organization (WHO) is here.
Congress to America: Drop Dead.
Not concerned about the Zika virus yet? You will be - it could make the
recent ebola scare look like a relative walk in the park. Here's an
excerpt of an Op-Ed in The New York Times from Nicholas Kristof: "...Even
Senator Marco Rubio laid into his fellow Republicans a few weeks ago,
saying: “The money is going to be spent. And the question is, Do we do
it now before this has become a crisis, or do we wait for it to become a
crisis?” Rubio is right. It’s always more cost-effective and lifesaving
to tackle an epidemic early. “I’m very worried, especially for our U.S.
Gulf Coast states,” said Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, a tropical diseases
expert at Baylor College of Medicine. “I cannot understand why a member
of Congress from a Gulf Coast state cannot see this train approaching.
It’s like refusing emergency preparedness funds for an approaching
hurricane...”
Photo credit: "An
official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speaking
during a press briefing on Zika at the White House last month. President
Obama has requested more than $1.8 billion to address the virus." Credit Zach Gibson for the The New York Times.
The Growing Stress on the World's Water. Here's the intro to an Op-Ed from the Editorial Board at The Washington Post: "THE WORLD Bank has warned countries that one of climate change’s most significant impacts will be on a precious resource that many people, particularly in advanced nations, take for granted: water. The concerns go far beyond sea-level rise, which is perhaps the most predictable result of the planet’s increasing temperature, or an uptick in extreme weather. Countries must worry about whether their people will have enough fresh water to farm, produce electricity, bathe and drink. Global warming will not change the amount of water in the world, but it will affect water’s distribution across countries, making some much worse off..."
Photo credit above: "A farmer carrying a hoe walks past a dried-up pond in Shilin Yi Autonomous County of Kunming, Yunnan province February 28, 2013." (STRINGER/CHINA/REUTERS).
Photo credit: "Nebraska farmers in Keystone XL battle carve a massive crop art message into an 80-acre cornfield calling for 100% clean energy for all." Photo credit: Tom Simmons / Spectral Q.
Clean Energy "Miracles" Remain Elusive - But Here's Why That Might Not Be a Problem. VICE News has the story; here's a snippet: "...The progress has been buoyed by tax credits for wind and solar power that Congress extended in a December budget deal. The United States added enough solar and wind power in 2015 to light about 3.8 million homes, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and industry estimates. And federal regulators just approved a new long-distance power line that will carry electricity from wind farms in Texas and Oklahoma to the Southeast. The price of renewables is still higher than coal or comparatively cleaner natural gas, but the gap is shrinking as more wind and solar capacity comes online, said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Energy Consumers Alliance of New England..."
Photo credit: Larry W. Smith/EPA.
Image credit: "Global EV sales, 2011-2015". (Source: energy.gov via insideevs.com)
The Mask You Live In
follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves
while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity.
Research shows that compared to girls, boys in the U.S. are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavior disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives.
- See more at: http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in/#sthash.ZGtWTUKu.dpuf
Research shows that compared to girls, boys in the U.S. are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavior disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives.
- See more at: http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in/#sthash.ZGtWTUKu.dpuf
The Mask You Live In
follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves
while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity.
Research shows that compared to girls, boys in the U.S. are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavior disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives.
- See more at: http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in/#sthash.ZGtWTUKu.dpuf
Research shows that compared to girls, boys in the U.S. are more likely to be diagnosed with a behavior disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives.
- See more at: http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in/#sthash.ZGtWTUKu.dpuf
Photo credit: "The famous socks." (Photo: Courtesy of Dawn Repetto).
9 of the Most Incredible Model Trains in the World. And a few of them are here in the USA, according to Atlas Obscura.
TODAY: Showers likely, gusty winds. Winds: NW 15-25. High: near 50
FRIDAY NIGHT: Showers and sprinkles taper, still windy. Low: 35
SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy, cool breeze - few PM sprinkles? Winds: NW 10-20. High: 49
SUNDAY: Frost risk for outlying suburbs, more sun with less wind. Winds: NW 8-13. Wake-up: 33. High: near 60
MONDAY: More clouds, slight shower risk. Winds: N 5-10. Wake-up: 42. High: 63
TUESDAY: Gradual clearing, pleasant. Winds: NW 7-12. Wake-up: 48. High: 64
WEDNESDAY: Plenty of sun, feels like May again. Winds: SE 7-12. Wake-up: 47. High: 66
THURSDAY: Clouds increase, late shower? Winds: S 8-13. Wake-up: 49. High: 68
Photo credit: "We endured everything," said Doering. "From complete whiteout, to snow, to sunshine." (The Changing Earth).
Climate Change: Extreme African Heatwaves May Spark "Humanitarian Crisis of Unknown Dimensions". Alarmist hype? Stay tuned. Here's an excerpt of a summary of recent research at International Business Times: "Extreme heatwaves in Africa could take place once every year by 2040, and four times every year by the latter quarter of the century. Scientists warn that these dangerously hot temperature spells could result in a "humanitarian crisis of unknown dimensions". Because of its geographical position between the tropics, solar radiation is always high. This means that heatwaves can take place at any time of the year. Furthermore, in the last 50 to 100 years, surface temperatures across most of the continent have increased by 0.5C or more..."
Photo credit above: "Africa could have four heatwaves each year by 2075." Gareth Beynon/Flickr.
Global Warming Cited as Wildfires Increase in Fragile Boreal Forest. Justin Gillis and Henry Fountain have the story at The New York Times; here's the introduction: "Scientists have been warning
for decades that climate change is a threat to the immense tracts of
forest that ring the Northern Hemisphere, with rising temperatures,
drying trees and earlier melting of snow contributing to a growing
number of wildfires. The near-destruction of a Canadian city last week
by a fire that sent almost 90,000 people fleeing for their lives is grim
proof that the threat to these vast stands of spruce and other resinous
trees, collectively known as the boreal forest, is real. And scientists
say a large-scale loss of the forest could have profound consequences
for efforts to limit the damage from climate change..."
Photo credit: "Charred
trees near Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada. Climate change is a prime
suspect in a rise of wildfires in the boreal forest." Credit Ian Willms for The New York Times.
New Era of "Superfires" as Climate Change Triggers Hotter, Drier Weather. Are we loading the dice in favor of more Fort McMurrays? Here's an excerpt from CNBC: "...Meanwhile, climate change has already led to U.S. fire seasons that are now on average 78 days longer than in 1970, according to a report on the rising cost of wildfire operations from the U.S. government last year. The six worst fire seasons since 1960 have all occurred since 2000, according to the U.S. report. Since 2000, many Western states have experienced the largest wildfires in their state's history. And literally adding fuel to the fire, more development has been taking place near U.S. forests over the years..."
Photo credit: Mark Blinch | Reuters. "Smoke and flames from the wildfires erupt behind cars on the highway near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, May 7, 2016."
Talking About Wildfires and Climate Change Isn't Playing Politics. Huffington Post reports.
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