Monday, June 6, 2016

Heat Spike Brewing for Late Week, But Will 90s Linger?

52 mph peak wind in the metro Monday morning.
71 F. high yesterday at KMSP
76 F. average high on June 6 in the Twin Cities.
79 F. high on June 6, 2015.

June 7, 2011: The Twin Cities reach a high of 103 degrees, shattering the previous record high by 8 degrees.
June 7, 1939: Grapefruit-sized hail falls in Rock County, killing hundreds of farm animals near Hills.


The Dog Days of June Arrive by Late Week

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it" said Russel Baker.

It's hard to imagine this morning, but by late week we could be looking at Heat Advisories, even an Excessive Heat Warning.

All hyperbole and exaggeration aside, it may feel 50 degrees warmer by Friday afternoon, as the same heat bubble that has tormented Phoenix and the Desert Southwest expands into Minnesota. Models suggest highs in the 90-95F range Friday, with a dew point in the 70s. That could create a Heat Index close to 100F. Like turning on a light switch: instant summer.

ECMWF guidance hints at a wind shift Saturday, as a northeast breeze of Canadian heritage takes the edge off some of the heat. But any relief will probably be temporary. A persistent bubble of hot high pressure sets up over the central USA, meaning a streak of 80s, with a few 90s thrown in for good measure.

The leading edge of this free sauna may set off a stray thundershower early Thursday, with more T-storms flaring up Sunday and Monday.

Going way out on a limb: by next week you may be praying for a cooling shower.
Reviewing Heat-Related Terminology. Thanks to the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service for passing along some timely reminders. The terminology below will become increasingly relevant as the week goes on - I wouldn't be surprised to see a Heat Advisory or Excessive Heat Watch issued on Friday:

Heat Index: A number in degrees Fahrenheit (F) that tells how hot it feels when relative humidity is added to the air temperature. Exposure to full sunshine can increase the heat index by 15 degrees.

Excessive Heat Watch (Usually issued 2-4 days ahead of time) : Forecast Conditions are favorable for the heat index to meet or exceed 100 degrees (Hennepin/Ramsey counties) or 105  (the remainder of central and south central MN and west central WI)

Excessive Heat Warning (Usually issued 1-2 days ahead of time when confidence is 80% or higher): Heat index values are forecast to reach 100 degrees Hennepin/Ramsey counties) or 105 (the remainder of central and south central MN and west central WI)

Heat Advisory: Heat index values are forecast to reach 95 degrees (Hennepin/Ramsey counties) or 100 for the remainder of central and south central MN and west central WI.
Heat Spike? ECMWF (European) guidance shows low 90s Friday, a few degrees cooler than yesterday's 12z run. Unlike NOAA's models the ECMWF brings a stronger push of cooler, Canadian air south over the weekend, with the core of the hottest air staying south and west of MSP. Graphic: WeatherBell.
Dueling models....
Another Solution. NOAA's models, specifically GFS runs, keep low 90s into Saturday and Sunday. Which model has the right idea? Stay tuned. Graphic: Aeris Enterprise.
Hottest Day: Friday. Our internal model ensemble predicts 93F by the dinner hour on Friday with a dew point in the low 70s. Source: Aeris Enterprise Mobile.
Heavy Rain Potential Early Next Week. The approach of a cooler front may result in significant rains by Monday of next week; GFS solutions hinting at 1-2" of rain.
Winds Ease Wednesday. If you're looking for lighter winds to get on the lake you're in luck tomorrow, with sustained winds in the 5-10 mph range in the Twin Cities metro.
Cloud Cover Prediction. The approach of hot, humidified air sets off clouds and a few early morning T-showers Thursday, but bright sun returns much of Friday, increasing the potential of low to mid 90s.
An Above Average Season for Hurricanes in the Atlantic? NOAA is predicting an average summer and fall for tropical development, but Penn State's ESSC forecast calls for an above-average year for tropical cyclones in the Caribbean and Atlantic basin. 3 named storms by June 6? That's the most on record so early in the season, but is there a correlation with an above-average hurricane season? Here's an excerpt: "ESSC scientist Michael E. Mann, alumnus Michael Kozar, and researcher Sonya K. Miller have released their seasonal prediction for the 2016 North Atlantic hurricane season, which officially starts on June 1st and runs through November 30th. The prediction is for 18.9 +/- 4.4 total named tropical cyclones, which corresponds to a range between 14 and 24 storms with a best estimate of 19 named storms. This prediction was made using the statistical model of Kozar et al. (2012, see PDF here). This statistical model builds upon the past work of Sabbatelli and Mann (2007, see PDF here) by considering a larger number of climate predictors and including corrections for the historical undercount of events (see footnotes)..."
On the other hand...
Why This Hurricane Season Is So Important to Scientists. Bloomberg provides some timely perspective; here's the intro: "This summer and fall, the Atlantic Ocean might become a testing ground for competing scientific theories. After decades of warmth, there’s evidence that the ocean is cooling, a change that could mean fewer of the hurricanes that wreak havoc on coastal communities and their economies. Part of a cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the chill probably will even overshadow the fading El Nino in the Pacific that should have made the 2016 hurricane season one of the more active in recent years. “It is a very important pattern,” said Gerry Bell, a hurricane climate specialist with the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland..."
India's Crippling Heat Wave Continues With Temperatures Over 116F. TIME has the details; here's an excerpt: "More than 130 people have now died from the heat wave and resultant drought. Despite the onset of the monsoon in several parts of the country, India continues to reel under a brutal heat wave that has now lasted more than two months and claimed dozens of lives. On Monday, temperatures rose to more than 47°C (116.6°F) in the western state of Rajasthan — which also recorded India’s hottest day ever at 123.8°F last month — the Press Trust of India reported..." (Map credit: WeatherBell).
Super Bowl of Weather. Proving that Minnesota weather is not for the faint of heart. Graphic credit above: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Cascadia, a State of Mind and a Megaquake. A story at The Los Angeles Times caught my eye (with a son and daughter in law living in Seattle); here's an excerpt: "...Yet now, as the region booms with newcomers drawn to its technology economy, Cascadia’s distinctiveness has become both indisputably clear and darkly complicated. Its very existence is threatened with what scientists say is a strong likelihood that, sooner or later, it will be faced with the largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States. On Tuesday, as many as 20,000 people across Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho, mainly federal employees, will begin a four-day exercise called “Cascadia Rising” — a trial run at responding to a massive magnitude 9.0 quake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the northwest coast near here, and the tsunami that would inevitably accompany it..."

Photo credit: "David McCloskey, right, points out a feature of his map of Cascadia to a vistor at Nisqually Reach, on the southern shore of Puget Sound." (William Yardley / Los Angeles Times)
A Suburban Experiment Aims for Free Energy. Yes, free has a nice ring. Here's the intro to a New York Times story: "At first glance, Anthony and Vanessa Genau’s home in a subdivision beneath the San Gabriel Mountains here is like any other gracious new suburban dwelling, with an open-plan living space, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. But, along with 19 other cream, taupe and rust stucco houses that cradle the landscaped playgrounds here, it is actually something else: a large-scale testing ground for an energy system of the very near future. With a combination of rooftop solar panels, smart thermostats, advanced water heaters and other high-efficiency features, the homes are all built with a similar goal: to make at least as much energy as they use over a year..."
Norway Moves Towards Banning Gas-Burning Cars by 2025. Fortune reports; here's the intro: "Norway’s Dagens Næringsliv newspaper reports that four of the country’s major parties have reached agreement on a proposal to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars starting in 2025. The proposal is not yet law, but one interested party celebrated a little early...."
Drew Houston of Dropbox: Figure Out The Things You Don't Know. It's a pretty long list. Here's an excerpt of an interesting interview at The New York Times: "...Culture always starts out as the sort of bizarre average of the founders’ personalities. But a couple of years ago, we decided to define our values and make our culture explicit. There are a lot of ways to think about it, but one of them is, how do you build something that sustains excellence over a long period of time? Or to put it another way, it seems that most companies, most organisms, decay as they get older and bigger, and so how do you inoculate your company from the most common things that tend to go wrong?..."
Take a Ride on 10 of the World's Most Mind-Blowing Elevators. Atlas Obscura takes a look at some of the more unique/obscure elevators on the planet; here's an excerpt: "...Whether it's the gothic ironwork of Brazil's Santa Justa Lift or the futuristic pods of the Mercedes-Benz Museum or the Aquadom lift that carries riders straight through a massive aquarium, some elevators are so amazing, they become destinations in and of themselves. Take a look at 10 of the world's most amazing elevators. We'll hold the door for you..."

Photo credit: Jim Woddward/CC BY 2.0

TODAY: Sunny and pleasant. Winds: NW 10-15. High: 71

TUESDAY NIGHT: Clear, still cool for early June. Low: 53

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny and warmer. Winds: SE 5-10. High: 77

THURSDAY: Early thunder risk, then sticky sun. Winds: SE 7-12. Wake-up: 62. High: 84

FRIDAY: Sizzling sun, heat index near 100? Dew point: low 70s. Winds: S 10-15. Wake-up: 71. High: 93

SATURDAY: Wind shift, slight cooler, less humid. Winds: NE 10-15. Wake-up: 74. High: 87

SUNDAY: Sticky again, growing thunder risk. Winds: SE 10-15. Wake-up: 70. High: 84

MONDAY: Early T-storms, some may be heavy. Winds: N 8-13. Wake-up: 71. High: 82

Climate Stories...


Historic Deluge Hits Texas. Houston, You Have a Problem. Here's an excerpt of an Eric Holthaus post at Slate: "...It’s impossible to know exactly how much climate change factors into the likelihood of these specific events, but it’s certain that it has. Hotter hots, drier droughts, and heavier rains have long been predicted as a consequence of rising greenhouse gas levels that speed up our planet’s water cycle and intensify many already extreme weather events. (The lingering effects of a record-setting El Niño is also likely playing a part in the recent Texas floods. And, it’s not just Texas: Over the past several days, major floods have also hit Paris and other parts of Europe, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia.) Texas has seen some of the most drastic change in the United States, with Houston registering a 167 percent increase in the biggest downpours since the 1950s..." (2015 file photo: weather.com).
Alaska's Huge Climate Mystery - And Its Global Consequences. Chris Mooney reports for The Washington Post; here's the intro: "In recent years, climate scientists have grown increasingly concerned about a carbon problem in the far north. The fear is that with the higher latitudes of the planet warming extremely rapidly, that heat itself, and some of its consequences — such as raging wildfires in northern forests — could unleash a climate disaster. Perennially frozen northern soils, known as permafrost, contain enormous amounts of carbon because the slow and cold chemistry of the Arctic makes them the repository of thousands of years of frozen plant remains..."

Photo credit: "In this June 2015 photo, smoke rises from the Bogus Creek Fire, one of two fires then burning in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Alaska." (Matt Snyder/Alaska Division of Forestry via Associated Press).
Wisconsin Bees Dying Due To Insecticides, Global Warming and a Mite, Experts Say. PerfScience has an update: "...The previous season, nearly 60% of Wisconsin honeybees died off during the winter, a rate that was 4 times higher than the one considered acceptable. In six of the past seven seasons, bee die-off rates have climbed over 30%. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, 44% of bees died off across the nation this season. As per experts, the die off is an outcome of using insecticides, global warming and a mite. With the fall in the number of honeybees in Wisconsin, the beekeepers should import new hives from throughout the country..."

Meteorologist Don Paul: How I Learned Manmade Climate Change Is The Real Deal. Here's an excerpt of Don's Op-Ed at The Buffalo News: "...When climate models are run, they can be initialized with different data sets and different levels of greenhouse gas in particular. To a model, when these models are run with the carbon dioxide level of the year approximately 1900 (around 297 ppm rather than the current 403 ppm), and natural warming (not man-made) forces are maxed up, the globe would have shown slight cooling through the end of the 20th century. Left to so-called normal cyclic changes, even with other warming mechanisms in nature pumped up, no other explanation can be found for warming that has been ongoing at different rates over recent decades..."
For Oil Industry, Clean Air Fight Was Dress Rehearsal for Climate Denial. Here's an excerpt of the latest installment from InsideClimate News: "...Industry's response to smog and its fight against clean air standards unfolds like a rough draft of the muscular strategy it deployed 40 years later to deny climate science and the need for an urgent policy response, as documented in ICN's series "Exxon: The Road Not Taken." "How the oil industry handled smog is a template for how it handled a bunch of issues, the most significant being climate change. There's a DNA here that's palpable," said Carroll Muffett, an attorney who is the president of the watchdog group, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)..."

Photo credit above: "Caltech scientist Arie Haagen-Smit (pictured) discovered in the early 1950s that oil was the cause of the dangerous smog shrouding L.A. Industry then conducted its own research to discredit Haagen-Smit's findings and manufacture doubt around the link between oil and smog. It continues to fight attempts to tighten smog regulation." Photo courtesy of the California Institute of Technology.
Editorial: Carbon Pricing Will Be a Key to Fighting Climate Change. An Op-Ed at the Canadian Trucking Alliance caught my eye; here's an excerpt: "...As indicated above, carbon pricing is being promoted as an essential measure in the fight against climate change. There are two main forms of carbon pricing: (1) A carbon tax; or (2) A cap-and-trade system. Put simply, the difference is that the amount of GHG reduction from a carbon tax is a function of the market based on the price of fuel, whereas a cap and trade system sets an actual cap on GHG emissions and a market of tradeable credits is created where those who reduce their carbon footprint can sell the credits they receive to those who are not meeting their targets. Both have their positive and negative features, depending on your point of view. The outcome of both is – either directly (carbon tax) or indirectly (cap and trade) – an increase in fuel prices. It is argued that by placing a price on carbon, consumers of fossil fuels will economize (use less) of those fuels and seek alternative, cleaner fuels. But, the devil is always in the details..."


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