60 F. high temperature in the Twin Cities Tuesday.
60 F. average high on October 13.
57 F. high on October 13, 2014.
October 14, 1983:
"Surprise" snowstorm covers east central Minnesota. The Twin Cities
measured 13.6 inches. Brilliant blue skies and bright sun the morning
after.
October 14, 1886:
St. Cloud-Sauk Rapids tornado. It left 72 people dead. 80 percent of
all buildings in Sauk Rapids were leveled as the tornado expanded to 800
yards across. When it crossed the Mississippi it knocked down two iron
spans of a wagon bridge and local witnesses said the river was "swept
dry" during the tornado crossing. There was 300,000 dollars damage in
Sauk Rapids and only 4,000 dollars worth was insured. The forecast for
that day was for local rains and slightly warmer with highs in the 50s.
Big Temperature Swings BrewingColors Peaking Soon
"Autumn...the
year's last, loveliest smile" wrote William Cullen Bryant. Nature's
grand finale is in full play; a splash of Crayola color on the trees,
the air cool and clean. Fewer bugs showing up on Doppler too.
October
can be a manic month, capable of 80s and 90s, but also towering drifts
of snow. NOAA records show pioneers at Fort Snelling digging out from 11
inches of snow on this date in 1820. In 1880 a blizzard in western
Minnesota left Canby buried under 20 FOOT drifts, which didn't melt
until the following spring. Autumn 2015 has been a blessing, by
comparison.
No drama brewing, but get ready for big temperature
extremes and more wind. Another slap of Canadian air sets the stage for
the first widespread freeze of the season
Saturday morning. So long ragweed. Good riddance.
Strong south winds on the backside of a high pressure bubble warm us into the 60s early next week; 70F possible
Monday before a storm spins up with rain late
Tuesday into
Wednesday. It won't be cold enough for s-s-snow looking out 2 weeks or so. After that all bets are off.
Enjoy the quiet spell!
A Good Chance of "Freezing".
Models are in fairly tight alignment showing temperatures at Spring
Park (and most other close-in suburbs) dipping below freezing for a few
hours. Not sure it'll be a hard freeze in the immediate metro, but if
you have some plants you want to keep around awhile, cover them up,
bring them indoors, or write them off. Graphic: Aeris Enterprise.
7 AM Saturday Morning.
NOAA's GFS model shows sub-freezing temperatures over most of Wisconsin
and a big chunk of Minnesota, coming roughly 10 days later than average
this year.
Bouncing Back.
After a frosty start Saturday temperatures slowly moderate, reaching
near 60F Sunday and well into the 60s Monday; the GFS is predicting 73F
at 2 PM Monday (which assumes some sun and no rain at that time).
10-Day Guidance.
Here's a closer look at the GFS model from last night, a tight pressure
gradient whipping up strong (15-25) mph winds Sunday and Monday as mild
air tries to surge north. By the end of the period the GFS tries to
bring a tropical depression across the Gulf of Mexico - not sure that's
real (yet). Stay tuned.
Mild Bias Continues.
October is running about 3F warmer than average in the Twin Cities, to
date. In spite of a few (fleeting) cold snaps I still detect a mild bias
in the maps looking out 2 weeks or so. 500 mb winds valid Tuesday
evening, October 27, courtesy of NOAA's GFS. Source: GrADS:COLA/IGES.
Massive El Nino Is Now "Too Big to Fail", Says Scientist.
The Los Angeles Times has the story - here's the introduction: "
An
El Niño that is among the strongest on record is gaining strength in
the Pacific Ocean, and climate scientists say California is likely to
face a wet winter. “There’s no longer a possibility that El Niño wimps
out at this point. It’s too big to fail,” said Bill Patzert,
climatologist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada
Flintridge. “And the winter over North America is definitely not going
to be normal,” he said. Just three weeks ago, the National Weather
Service’s Climate Prediction Center raised the odds of California
getting doused with a wetter-than-average winter..."
Graphic credit above: "
Satellite
images comparing Oct. 1, 2015, and Oct. 2, 1997, show large areas of
white, which indicate high sea levels -- a reflection of high sea
temperatures. The images show how this year's El Nino could be as
powerful as the one in 1997, the strongest El Nino on record." (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory).
1997 vs. 2015: Animation Compares El Ninos, Side-by-Side. Here's a link to an animation and story from
Climate Central: "...
On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization
declared this El Nino a strong one, and some scientists have noted that
sea surface temperatures in a key part of the eastern Pacific are
higher than in previous events by this point of the year. Forecasters
with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Columbia University said in their August update
that temperatures in that region could reach more than 3.5°F above
normal when this event peaks in the winter, something only recorded
three times in the 65 years of record-keeping, including the 1997-1998
event (as well as 1982-1983 and 1972-1973)..."
Weather Channel Releases Names of Upcoming Winter Storms. Where's Bubba? I want a storm called "Bubba" before I meet my maker. Here's an excerpt from a story at
Capital Weather Gang: "...
Every
fall, the Weather Channel’s winter names announcement is met with
reactions ranging from skepticism to vitriol. But they’re not backing
away from the project, which Mary Glackin, senior vice president for
public-private partnerships at the Weather Company, says is the right
move for public safety and the weather industry. “I would like to see us
reach some solution as a whole enterprise,” Glackin told The Washington
Post. She used Hurricane Joaquin and South Carolina’s recent flooding
disaster as an example of events where, despite agreement among
meteorologists, the public can still fail to grasp the most critical
impact message..."
2015 Has Been A Year of Record-Breaking U.S. Weather Events. It's a fairly long list - here's an excerpt from
Huffington Post: "
Catastrophic flooding in South Carolina since last week shattered state rainfall records and shocked longtime residents and officials, who said they've never seen rain so powerful. But it's hardly the first extreme, record-breaking weather event in the U.S. this year. Floods, hurricanes, wildfires
and other extreme events are becoming more frequent and more intense
because of climate change, experts warn, and that's never been more
apparent than in 2015. Here's a look at some of the record-breaking
weather-related events that have hit the U.S. this year..."
Photo credit:
AP Photo/David J. Phillip.
The American Cities Most Threatened by Rising Sea Levels.
Not a climate model, but actual observations: sea levels are rising -
the question is how much more, and how quickly? Here's an excerpt from
Mashable: "...
The
cities of Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, Sacramento and Miami follow New
York in terms of the size of the population that could avoid
submergence if steep carbon cuts were to take place in the next couple
of decades versus a business-as-usual course, according to data provided
by the study's authors. In Virginia Beach, for example, the difference
between a high and low emissions scenario means the contrast between
seeing the entire city submerged under the Atlantic, and only a portion
of it reclaimed by the sea. The study raises the possibility that the
cultural legacy of cities ranging from New York to Boston to Miami and
New Orleans are at existential risk..." (File photo: Andrew Demp, Yale).
Allergies Are Becoming More Frequent. Why? Here's an excerpt of an interesting post from The Conversation and
Huffpost Healthy Living: "...
The reasons for the rising number of allergies are not fully understood, but here are six theories.
1)
Decreased exposure to infections or microbes – or both – in early life
could lead to an increased risk of allergy. This is commonly referred to
as the hygiene hypothesis, first suggested in 1989. Research showing children
who have close contact with pets or livestock and those who come from
larger families are less likely to develop allergies have indirectly
supported the hygiene hypothesis..."
Renewable Energy's Potential May Be Understated. The headline I thought I'd never see at
The Wall Street Journal; here's an excerpt: "...
The
experience of California and other states with high concentrations of
solar and wind, such as Hawaii, is challenging long-held assumptions
about the limits of renewable energy. As the boundary of what is
considered possible expands, so does the momentum around investment in
new technology and resources. “You’ll hear numbers [that] people bandy
about and most of them are wrong: ‘We know we can get to at least 35% or
40%,’ ” says Haresh Kamath, an expert in energy storage and distributed
generation with the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto,
Calif..."
Big Utilities Enter Market for Small Rooftop Solar.
The Santa Fe New Mexican has the story - here's a link and excerpt: "
Traditional power companies are getting into small-scale solar energy and competing for space on your rooftop.
The emerging competition comes as utilities and smaller solar
installers fight over the future of the U.S. energy system. While the
market for residential solar power remains a financial drop in the
bucket for a big utility, the installation of solar panels overall grew
by more than 50 percent in 2014 and is on track for another
record-breaking year at time when the traditional utility business is
pretty flat..."
Photo credit above: "Electricians
Adam Hall, right, and Steven Gabert, install solar panels in July on a
roof in Goodyear, Ariz. Traditional power companies are getting into
small-scale solar energy and competing for space. The emerging
competition comes as utilities and smaller solar installers fight over
the future of the U.S. energy system." Matt York/Associated Press file photo.
With Market On Their Side, Electric Utilities Skip Fight Against Carbon Rule. Renewables and natural gas are now helping utilities lower their costs (and carbon emissions), as reported by
The Wall Street Journal: "
U.S.
coal companies and at least 16 state governments are working on
challenges to the Obama administration’s new rule limiting carbon
emissions from power plants. Most electric utilities have a different
strategy: They are embracing it. From Dominion Resources Inc. in Virginia to Dynegy Inc. in Houston to Ohio’s FirstEnergy Corp. ,
electricity producers say they plan to comply rather than contest the
regulation. The main reason, executives and experts say, is that
economic forces are pushing the power industry inexorably toward a
lower-carbon future..." (File image: AARP).
It Finally Occurred To Someone To Crowdsource The Weather.
Motherboard has the details; here's a link and excerpt: "
There’s
a big hole in weather forecasting nowadays: none of them really ask the
guy on the street how it’s feeling outside. And that untapped avenue is
the target for Sunshine,
a mobile weather app released last week on the iOS App Store. Unlike a
traditional weather app, Sunshine shows you a local street map with
crowdsourced reports from people using it to report local sky conditions..."
Weight Gain Possibly Tied to Later Bedtimes. I'm going to bed right after a 6-course dinner. Here's an excerpt from
The New York Times: "
There
may be a link between later bedtimes and weight gain, new research
suggests. Researchers studied 3,342 adolescents starting in 1996,
following them through 2009. At three points over the years, all
reported their normal bedtimes, as well as information on fast food
consumption, exercise and television time. The scientists calculated
body mass index at each interview..."
Image credit: Stuart Bradford.
Starting Today Starbucks Delivers (To One Building). Because I'm much too busy to wait in line or pull up in the drive-thru. A trend in the making? Here's a clip from
WIRED: "...
This
is the pilot location for the coffee company’s much-anticipated Green
Apron Delivery service. It launches today, almost a year to the
day after CEO Howard Schultz announced in an earnings call that
Starbucks would be looking into a delivery option, calling it
their “version of e-commerce on steroids.” It only caters to customers
in the building (Observation Deck not included), but will likely serve
as the proving ground for future delivery kitchens..."
TODAY: Sunny and pleasant. Winds: W 10-15. High: 69
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Low: 43
THURSDAY: Cloudier and cooler, passing shower? Winds: NW 10-20. High: near 60 (falling into the 50s)
FRIDAY: More clouds than sun, brisk, light jacket needed. Winds: NW 10-15. Wake-up: 38. High: near 50
SATURDAY: Frosty start. Bright sunshine. Winds: SE 5-10. Wake-up: 31. High: 53
SUNDAY: Sunny, windy and milder. Winds: SE 15-25. Wake-up: 37. High: near 60
MONDAY: Some lukewarm early, PM shower possible. Wake-up: 49. High: 70
TUESDAY: Early sun, late showers. Wake-up: 53. High: 63
Climate Stories...
Why Scientists Are So Worried About the Ice Shelves of Antarctica. Tipping
points - we don't know what we don't know. If anything the rate of
melting of Greenland and sea ice in Antarctica has been taking place
faster than the climate models predicted. Here's an excerpt from
The Washington Post: "...
They
found that under both scenarios, Antarctic-wide surface melt doubles by
the year 2050, with the amount of meltwater produced coming close to
200 gigatons per year (a gigaton is a billion metric tons). This is a troubling finding, said Nerilie Abram,
a researcher from the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
at Australian National University who was not involved with the study,
in an e-mail to The Post. But, she said, “I think that the more
interesting result is to look at the huge divergence in predicted
Antarctic ice melt during the second half of the century...”
Photo credit above: "The photograph above shows an edge of the Thwaites Ice Shelf." (Jim Yungel/NASA)
Carbon Choices Determine U.S. Cities Committed to Futures Below Sea Level. Here is an excerpt of the paper abstract, courtesy of
PNAS: "
As
greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the window to limit global
warming below 2 °C appears to be closing. Associated projections for
sea-level rise generally range near or below 1 m by 2100. However,
paleontological and modeling evidence indicates long-term sea-level
sensitivity to warming that is roughly an order of magnitude higher.
Here we develop relationships between cumulative carbon emissions and
long-term sea-level commitment and explore implications for the future
of coastal developments in the United States..."
Sea Level Analyzer.
How quickly we curtail carbon emissions will determine the amount of
sea level rise that's locked in for the future. Climate Central has a
tool that helps to visualize best-case, and worst-case scenarios going forward.
Methane Release From Melting Permafrost Could Trigger Dangerous Global Warming. Here's a snippet from
The Guardian: "...
To
put this in perspective, permafrost contains almost twice as much
carbon as is present in the atmosphere. In the rapidly warming Arctic
(warming twice as fast as the globe as a whole), the upper layers of
this frozen soil begin to thaw, allowing deposited organic material to
decompose. The plant material, which has accumulated over thousands of
years, is concentrated in to upper layers (half of it is in the top 10
feet). There is a network of monitoring stations that are measuring
ground temperatures have detected a significant heating trend over the
past few decades and so has the active layer thickness..." (File image: NASA).
Biology: Climate Change a "Threat Multiplier" on Stressors. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
The Columbus Dispatch: "...
According
to a New York Times report, Kerry told more than 450 delegates, “You
think migration is a challenge in Europe today because of extremism,
wait until you see what happens when there’s an absence of water, an
absence of food or one tribe fighting against another for mere
survival.” A growing number of research groups and agencies suggest
we’re already there. Those groups argue that environmental factors,
especially drought, have caused crop failures, increased food costs and
migration from parched, rural areas to Middle East urban centers. Once
there, those agricultural refugees exacerbated civil unrest that led to
the Arab Spring, a wave of increasingly violent protests..." (File: AP).
Bringing Republicans to the Climate Change Table. Here's an excerpt from a story at
The New York Times: "...
Is
it possible to turn the Republican Party around? It won’t be easy.
Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are wedded to
defending a declining coal industry and advancing the interests of oil
companies, most clearly in their support for the Keystone
pipeline. Many of the party’s lawmakers and presidential candidates get
a lot of money from people like the Koch brothers, who have
multimillion-dollar contributions for anybody who will stand against
efforts to curb the use of fossil fuels. But there is more than money to
the story. For many Republicans, climate change poses an existential
quagmire..."
Photo credit above: "
Smokestacks
of the Capitol Power Plant frame the Capitol building. Republican Party
views on climate change today stand in sharp contrast to the mainstream
position of the party less than a decade ago." Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
The Most Pessimistic Climate Change Scientist Has Had a Sudden Change of Heart. Will technological innovation and renewables trending cheaper than fossil fuels save the day? Here's an excerpt from
The Independent: "...
His
optimism is founded on the breakneck speed of innovation in wind and
solar power in the past two to three years, which means that renewable
energy is being deployed on a massive scale and, crucially, at a cost
roughly comparable to fossil fuels. Only last week new figures showed
that the cost of electricity produced by onshore windfarms in the UK has
fallen so much that for the first time it is now cheaper than
fossil-fuel energy..."
Ex-Republican Meteorologist Calls For End to Partisan Divide Over Climate Science.
This debate has become less about data, evidence and science and more
about "winning". Here's an excerpt of a Jason Samenow column at
The Capital Weather Gang: "...
Fishel
said in an email message that due to overall state of party politics,
after 30 years, he is no longer a Republican and considers himself
unaffiliated. “I hate agendas, and there are agendas on both sides of
the climate change debate which I abhor and have no time for,” Fishel’s
essay begins. “But once you cut through all of that, much of which is
ideological and political, you are left with hard science....”
Choose Science, Stewardship in Understanding Climate Change. My friend, Chief Meteorologist Greg Fishel at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina wrote an
article explaining the evolution of his views on climate science; here's an excerpt: "...
In
closing, I believe science is a gift from God. We benefit from science
in our daily lives 1,000 times over through all the conveniences we
enjoy. Why have we chosen to turn our back on science when it comes to
basic chemistry and physics? It is time to stop listening to the
disingenuous cherry-pickers and start taking responsibility for learning
the truth about climate change. For those of you who are ardent
skeptics, it's going to be uncomfortable. I know, I have gone through
the entire process. But in my mind, I didn't make a mistake, I simply
grew as a human being. There aren't too many experiences in life that
can top that."
September 2015 Continues Upward Trend in Global Temperatures. Here's an excerpt of a post from Greg Laden at
scienceblogs.com: "
The
NASA GISS global surface measurement for September is out. I don’t know
off hand if there are corrections for earlier months. The data for
September show the month as the same as the earlier month, 0.81 degrees C
anomaly. The current best estimate of the warming of the Earth’s
surface from anthropogenic global warming, using the NASA data and a 12
month running mean, looks like this..."
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