1.13" of rain drenched MSP International Airport yesterday.
85 F. high in the Twin Cities Thursday.
82 F. average high on August 4.
82 F. high on August 4, 2015.
August 5, 1904: A Detroit Lakes woman is hit by lightning. It melts her hairpins and the steel in her corset, but does not kill her.
An Order of Amazing Weekend Weather - To Go
"Hi,
I'd like a Weather Happy Meal. Blue Sky, over easy. A side of Low
Humidity, washed down with a Cool Breeze. And a Big Gulp of Good
Sleeping Weather please?"
No problem. Please pull forward.
Imagine
if we could make weather to order. Human hubris has no limits, it
seems. Ever since the first washed-out campfire at the local cave we've
tried to hack the weather. Cloud-seeding can squeeze more snow and rain
out of some clouds, but this is still more hand-waving than science.
That said,
52 nations, including the USA, have weather modification programs.
Tinkering with the sky - what can possibly go wrong?
Personally I'd like to enjoy the warmth, without snarling thunderstorms trying to blow me off the map. We get a break into
Monday
as a cooler, cleaner bubble of high pressure pushes out of Canada.
Expect highs from 78-82F with comfortable dew points in the 50s into
Sunday.
80s
return next week with a dash of humidity, but the core of
antiperspirant heat stays south of Minnesota the next 2-3 weeks. Minor
heat here - with frequent T-storms.
Drought optional this year.
* Image credit
here.
Significant Storm Damage Brainerd Lakes Area Early Thursday. Here's a link to raw chopper damage video and a story from
KSTP.com: "...
It's
just another hit, last year was a July 12 storm, right around the 12th
of this year another one," said Crow Wing County Sheriff Todd Dahl. "Now
this makes it the hat trick. We're dealing with tons of lines down,
trees on roofs and vehicles." Dahl says County Road 115, Ojibwa and
County Road 127 were heavily damaged by the early morning storms.
Emergency crews are working to open the roads and restore power..."
Swaths of Significant Damage.
A friend of mine (Pete Schenck) snapped these photos yesterday after
severe storms pushed across the Brainerd Lakes area. The photo on the
left is from the Nisswa cemetery; the picture on the right is on the
west side of Pelican Lake. Numerous reports of trees down and power out
up north.
Babe the Blue Ox Topples Over During Severe Storms. Numerous reports of downed trees and powerlines with power outages all across the Northland; here's an excerpt from
Duluth News Tribune: "
A
famed Minnesota attraction - known in folklore for its strength -
toppled over during an overnight severe storm early Thursday morning in
the region. Babe the Blue Ox, at Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd, was put
back on his feet later Thursday morning, the destination’s Facebook page
showed..."
Tracking Standing Water.
The animation above shows the condition of area highways as a line of
strong to severe T-storms pushed across the state Thursday morning.
The bright red/purple highlights areas of extreme rainfall rates,
standing water and likely hydroplaning as derived by our internal
models. Source: Aeris Enterprise.
Fairly Comfortable Weekend.
After a few steamy, thundery days we get a nice break today into Sunday
with highs in the upper 70s to low 80s and dew points dipping into the
50s, meaning far more comfortable than recent days. A dash of heat
returns by the middle of next week, but no extended or persistent heat
waves shaping up. Graphic: WeatherBell.
Light Weekend Winds.
Models show sustained winds in the 5-10 mph range much of Saturday and
Sunday as a weak bubble of Canadian high pressure has the good fortune
of passing directly over Minnesota. Graphic: Aeris Enterprise Mobile.
Generous Weekend Sunshine.
Cloud cover forecasts call for 10-40% over the weekend; afternoon
instability cumulus giving way to clearing skies overnight. Clouds
increase by Tuesday as warmer, stickier air approaches.
Wet, Warm and Wild. Here's an excerpt from the
AerisWeather Blog: "
A
total of 22 locations saw a top ten wettest July on record, mainly
across the mid-section of the country. A few location up in the
Northwest, however, did break into the top ten as well. Some of these
top ten locations included:
- Wichita, KS (9.67″)
- Columbia, MO (10.91″)
- Bismarck, ND (5.10″)
- New York-JFK Airport (6.06″)
- Glasgow, MT (3.42″)
Steamy July for Much of the USA.
Aeris Consulting Meteorologist D.J. Kayser takes a look at which cities
experienced some of their hottest July temperatures on record at
AerisWeather Blog:
"...
Electric
costs were high across parts of the nation during the month of July as
temperatures reached record levels in spots. In total, twelve long-term
climate locations across the South and Southeast saw their warmest Julys
on record. This included places such as:
- Columbia, SC (average temperature: 87.2)
- Tampa, FL (average temperature: 84.9)
- El Paso, TX (average temperature: 88.7)
Some
of the cities on the map above not only saw their warmest July on
record, but technically their warmest calendar month ever on record as
well. These three cities were the “lucky” ones able to do so:
- Charleston, SC (average temperature: 86.2 – previous warmest month ever: 86.1 in July 1986)
- West Palm Beach, FL (average temperature: 86.2 – previous warmest month ever: 85.7 in July 2011)
- Midland, TX (average temperature: 88.2 – previous warmest month ever: 88.0 in June 2011)..."
Witness to a Flash Flood.
Amanda Pruzinsky describes how the FEMA app on her phone alerted her to
an impending mega-flood last Saturday in Ellicott City, Maryland. I
have the FEMA app on my phone - it's definitely worth the time to
download this powerful (free) app. Here's an excerpt from
EPA: "...
No
one had any way of knowing that an otherwise ordinary day would end in
such devastation. Everyone was chatting about the rain when an alarm hit
our smart phones. Another summer storm, another flash flood warning,
everyone glances at their phones and continues on with their evening.
Its 8:11 p.m., only a few minutes after the flash flood warning to our
phones. The heavy rainstorm had turned into the warned flash flood in
less time than I can comprehend. Everyone is glued to the windows in the
front of the restaurant yelling over the sound of the raging water,
watching even after the basement filled with water, power went out, and
alarms came on. We continued watching for over an hour as the river of
brown water swept away cars, rolled huge dumpsters, toppled street
signs, cut the power lines, and raged like it would last forever..."
* More on FEMA's mobile app
here.
Improving Hurricane Intensity Forecasts. Models do a pretty good job with hurricane track, but intensity is much more difficult to predict.
NASA is about to launch 8 new CYGNSS "micro-satellites" that may help; here's an excerpt: "
Hurricane
track forecast accuracy has improved since 1990, but there has been
little improvement in intensity forecast accuracy. A new NASA mission
using eight micro-satellites will make accurate measurements of ocean
surface winds in and near the eye of the storm throughout the lifecycle
of tropical cyclones, typhoons & hurricanes. The Cyclone Global
Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) will probe the inner core of
hurricanes to learn about their rapid intensification. The mission will launch on Nov. 21, 2016, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on a Pegasus XL rocket. The University of Michigan is developing CYGNSS..." (Image credit: NASA).
How Soviet and American Hurricane Fliers Set Aside Cold War Politics for Science. Jack Williams has a fascinating story at
Capital Weather Gang; here's a clip that made me do a double-take: "...
Unknown
to the United States before Gilbert, Russian airplanes had flown out of
Cuba into Hurricane Emily in 1987, Hurricane Floyd and Tropical Storm
Chris the month before Gilbert. After Gilbert in 1988, the Russians flew
into Hurricanes Gabrielle and Hugo, Tropical Storm Iris and Hurricane
Jerry in 1989. In 1990, they flew into Hurricane Klaus and Tropical
Storm Marco. The Russians also flew into several Pacific Ocean typhoons
out of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly called North Vietnam
in the United States) from 1984 until 1990. They didn’t risk conflicts
with U.S. hurricane hunters; the United States had ended typhoon flights
in 1987..."
Image credit: "
Hurricane Gilbert, 1988." (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
Got An Extreme Weather Event? NOAA Tool Searches for Climate Link. Here's more information from InsideClimate News: "...Now,
a new searchable tool from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) shows, county by county, whether or how climate
change will change the likelihood of these extreme events in the decades
to come. The project is an updated version of NOAA's interactive Climate Explorer, part of the agency's U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.
David Herring, the toolkit's program manager, said the site was
designed to allow local governments, small business owners and natural
resource managers to plan for a future of warming-fueled extreme
weather. The Explorer includes maps and charts on how temperature and precipitation patterns could change on a local level through 2100..."
Is The Heat Index Real? The short answer is yes. More context from
Mental Floss: "...
The heat index is the temperature it feels like to your body when you factor in both the actual air temperature
and the amount of moisture in the air. If the heat index is 103°F, that
means that the combination of heat and humidity has a similar physical
impact on your body as it would if the actual air temperature were
103°F. Even though it’s tempting to think of the heat index as an
exaggerated temperature that only exists to make the heat sound worse
than it really is, scientists came up with the measurements after
decades of medical and meteorological research devoted to studying the impact of heat and humidity on the human body. It’s the real deal..."
Major Changes For 3 U.S. Weather Models Are Coming. Here's the intro to a story from Dr. Marshall Shepherd at
Forbes: "
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced
that major changes are coming to three of its weather prediction
models. To the weather community and enthusiasts this is a big deal.
However these changes also have impacts for a society which depends on
weather forecasts for day-to-day operations, agriculture, aviation,
national security, emergency response and more..."
Image credit: "
Improved resolution of newly announced NOAA weather forecast model." Courtesy of NOAA.
Countries Are Spending Millions to Control the Weather. Here's Why.
Yahoo News has an interesting story and background: "
This
summer, China set aside $30 million for a controversial project that
involves shooting salt-and-mineral-filled bullets into the sky. Their
mission? Make it rain. The project is part of a larger campaign of
so-called weather modification techniques that the country has been
using since at least 2008, when they claim to have cleared the skies for the Beijing Olympics by forcing the rain to come early. China is far from the only nation trying to bring (or stop) the rain. At least 52 countries — including the United States —
have current weather modification programs, 10 more countries than five
years ago, according to the World Meteorological Organization..."
Weather Disasters Can Fuel War in Volatile Countries.
Scientific American has the story - here's an excerpt: "
Following
the warmest two years on record and spikes in violence that fueled a
global refugee crisis, climate scientists on Monday reported that armed
fighting is prone to follow droughts, heatwaves and other
weather-related calamities in turbulent countries. Nearly a quarter of
deadly armed conflicts in the countries with the most diverse ethnic
makeups from 1980 to 2010 were found to have occurred at around the same
time as an extreme weather event. “It’s significant that you can make
that statement—that nearly 25 percent of those conflicts coincided with
some type of climate-related disaster,” said Jonathan Donges, a Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research scientist who helped lead the new study..."
Photo credit: "
African
countries like Uganda are among the world's most ethnically diverse,
and they are also vulnerable to climate change. New findings suggest
peace will be harder to achieve and maintain in places like Uganda as
the climate changes." Credit:
AMISOM Public Information/Flickr
Exxon Official Says a Ban on Fossil Fuel is Unrealistic. The Wall Street Journal has the story - here's an excerpt: "...
The
Exxon official said the company is concerned about the risks climate
change poses, and that it encourages the use of renewable and other
alternative fuels. But he said, for example, that even while the use of
wind and solar power will rise faster than any other energy source
through 2040, those two will still amount to less than 3% of total
energy use. “There are billions of people who need to read, need to
learn, need to improve their standard of living,” he said. “You simply
cannot do this without fossil fuels...”
Photo credit: "Stacks and burn-off from the Exxon Mobil refinery are seen at dusk in St. Bernard Parish, La." Photo: Associated Press.
Clean Air and Healthy Communities Can't Be Optional. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at TheHill: "...Pollution
that she knows is making her children and others sick even as she and
her neighbors pay higher utility bills than neighbors in less polluted
areas. In low-income communities and communities of color throughout the
country, stories like Washington's are common - and unnecessary. 68% of
African-Americans live within 30 miles of a coal plant, major sources
of deadly pollutants. 80% of Latinos live in areas that don't meet
federal EPA airquality standards. Systemic racism inpacts the very air
we breathe..."
Our Consumption of Earth's Natural Resources Has More Than Tripled in 40 Years. What would sustainable markets, sustainable capitalism look like? Huffington Post has the details: "Limestone
and steel for our homes, wheat and vegetables for our dinner, fossil
fuels for our industries: we rely heavily on our planet’s natural
resources to survive. Yet we’re using up these resources at such an
unsustainable pace that we may be “irreversibly” depleting some of them ―
and critically damaging our Earth in the process, according to a new United Nations report.
The report from the International Resource Panel, part of the UN
Environment Program, said extraction of primary materials has more than
tripled in 40 years. Rising consumption driven by a rapidly growing
middle class is fueling the rate..." (Image credit: NASA).
Wind-Powered Cargo Ships Could Help Cut Your Carbon Footprint. Here's an excerpt from
Mashable: "
Amid
the dozens of cargo ships now steering through the North Sea, one
vessel stands apart: the Avontuur, a 144-foot-long schooner powered only
by the wind and sun. Stocked with crates of artisanal gin and vodka,
the emissions-free cargo ship is making its maiden voyage from the tiny
town of Elsfleth in northwest Germany and around the tip of Denmark to
Rostock, on Germany’s northeast coast. After Rostock, the crew plans to
spend the next one to two years hauling organic wines, fair trade coffee
and other sustainable fare to ports across Europe, North America, the
Caribbean and, eventually, Australia..."
How Big a Threat Will Zika Be At The Olympics? Here's the intro to an analysis at
The Wall Street Journal: "
Brazil is experiencing a widespread outbreak of the Zika virus. In May, some health experts published an open letter calling for the Olympics to be postponed or moved. Others, like the World Health Organization, say the Games should go on. Fears have led a few athletes to drop out,
while two teams have deployed technology to reduce the risk of
transmission. Visitors are planning to take extra precautions. Will the
Olympics fuel the global spread of the Zika virus?..."
Map credit: Sources: Brazil's Health Ministry (cases); Kraemer MUG et al., eLife Sciences, University of Oxford (index).
Health Secrets of the Amish.
Here's a segment I'd like to see on QVC. Turns out tracking dirt into
the house may not be such a bad thing, after all. Here's an excerpt from
The New York Times: "...
The
findings also reiterate the theme that genes aren’t destiny. Disease
emerges from the dance between genes and environment. The asthma
epidemic may stem, at least in part, from the decline of what Graham
Rook, an immunologist at University College London, years ago called our
“old friends” — the organisms our immune systems expect to be present
in the environment. The newly sneezing upper classes in the 19th century
may have been the first to find themselves without these old friends.
Now most of the developed world has lost them. The task at hand is to
figure out how to get them back. One answer may come from the Amish
cowshed." (File image: Wikipedia).
Sub-Sub-Sub Island on Victoria Island.
Curious about what a third-order island is? And are you as concerned as
I am that Ken Jennings is an alien sent here to a). kick our butts at
Jeopardy and b). observe the human race? Here's an excerpt from
Atlas Obsura: "...
Eight
years after making his claim to fame among the international community,
Jennings drew attention from the much smaller community of extreme
geography fans. In January of 2012 Jennings announced that, after
countless hours of scanning Google Earth, he had found the world's
largest third order island, a nameless isle within Victoria Island. That
is: an island inside a lake, which is completely surrounded by another
island, which is completely surrounded by another lake, which itself
located on Victoria Island, which is located in the Arctic Ocean.
(Pinpointed on Google Maps here.)..." (Images: NASA).
TODAY: Comfortable sunshine! Winds: NW 10-15. High: near 80
FRIDAY NIGHT: Clear and pleasant. Low: 61
SATURDAY: Plenty of sun, no complaints. Winds: NW 8-13. High: 81
SUNDAY: Blue sky, a little more humidity. Winds: S 5-10. Wake-up: 63. High: 83
MONDAY: Partly sunny and muggy. Winds: S 8-13. Wake-up: 64. High: 84
TUESDAY: Some sun, risk of bumping into a T-storm. Winds: SW 5-10. Wake-up: 68. High: 86
WEDNESDAY: Lot's of sun, bordering on hot again. Winds: E 8-13. Wake-up: 70. High: near 90
THURSDAY: T-storms, locally heavy rain? Winds: SE 10-20. Wake-up: 71. High: 82
Climate Stories...
"I Cried... Right Into My Mask": Scientists Say Guam's Reefs Have Bleached Four Years Straight. The Washington Post reports; here's a clip: "...
And
there’s been no sign of a break this summer. After a recent dive in
Guam’s Tumon Bay, Raymundo took to Facebook to describe her shock at the
devastation. “I consider myself to be fairly objective and
logical about science,” she wrote. “But sometimes that approach fails
me. Today, for the first time in the 50 years I’ve been in the water, I
cried for an hour, right into my mask, as I witnessed the extent to
which our lovely Tumon Bay corals were bleaching and dying.” While not
all of the shallow reefs around Guam have been so severely affected, the
damage to the Tumon Bay corals is particularly worrying because that
area is so important for tourism, Raymundo said..."
Photo credit: "
Healthy coral and bleached coral at Guam’s West Agana site in 2014." (Photo by Laurie Raymundo)
Unitarian Universalists Sue For Right To Use Solar Panels, Cite Religious Freedom. ThinkProgress has the story: "
A
Unitarian Universalist church is suing the town of Bedford,
Massachusetts for denying a request to install solar panels on its
property, arguing that authorities are infringing on the congregation’s
right to express their religious belief in clean energy solutions. According to RLUIPA Defense, the First [Unitarian Universalist] Parish in Bedford
applied for a “certificate of appropriateness” to install solar panels
on its Meetinghouse earlier this year, only to be denied by the town’s
Historic District Commission. In response, the congregation filed a complaint
on June 27 based on an unusual argument: that the denial violated their
congregation’s free exercise of religion, specifically the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as Article II of the
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights..."
Photo credit: AP Photo/Mel Evans. "Solar panels are seen on the roof of St. Mark Lutheran Church, in Trenton, NJ in 2007".
U.S. Signed Pact To Keep Exxon Climate Probe Confidential.
Reuters has more details: "
A
pact that 15 U.S. states signed to jointly investigate Exxon Mobil Corp
for allegedly misleading the public about climate change sought to keep
prosecutors' deliberations confidential and was broadly written so they
could probe other fossil fuel companies.
The "Climate Change Coalition Common Interest Agreement" was signed by
state attorneys general in May, two months after they held a press
conference to say they would go after Exxon, the world's largest
publicly-traded oil and gas company, and possibly other companies. The signed agreement has not been made public until now, and Reuters reviewed a copy of it on Thursday..."
Photo credit: "
A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas - September 15, 2008." Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi.
Zillow Says Climate Change Could Leave 2 Million U.S. Homes Underwater - Literally. GeekWire has the story; here's the intro: "
The
U.S. housing market is finally recovering from the Great Recession —
but now comes the tide of an equally insidious threat: Climate change. New Zillow research shows
that unchecked climate change could leave 1.9 million homes underwater
by 2100. Underwater, in this case, does not refer to negative equity. If
sea levels rise by the estimated six feet in 85 years, about two percent of U.S. homes are at risk of being submerged. Those properties are worth a total $882 billion, according to Zillow...."
Photo credit: "
Waterfront properties on Lake Union in Seattle." (Photo via
Shutterstock).
The 10 Most Startling Facts About Climate in 2015 - The Warmest Year on Record. Jason Samenow looks at the data and trends at
Capital Weather Gang: "
Last
year was unequivocally the warmest year on record for Earth. The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday released a
300-page report documenting the historic warmth as well as scores of
other aspects of 2015’s climate. The hefty report, State of the Climate in 2015,
was produced by more than 450 scientists from 62 countries around the
world — more than any previous edition. Every single direct indicator of
temperature described in the report leaves no doubt that 2015’s global
surface temperature towered over any year preceding it. Numerous other
climate indicators related to temperature exhibited characteristics
consistent with such historic warmth..."
* Download
State of the Climate in 2015 from the American Meteorological Society.
2015 Set Frenzy of Climate Records. Andrea Thompson has more perspective at
Climate Central: "
The
report, now in its 26th year and published as a special edition of the
journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was put
together by 456 authors in 62 countries and provides a checkup of
Earth’s health. “We have to understand how the planet is changing and
varying . . . in order to understand where we may be going in the
future,” Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for
Environmental Information, said during a press teleconference. While a
strong El Niño provided a boost to global temperatures last year, the main driver of the planet’s temperature surge,
as well as other climate trends, is the warming caused by the buildup
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And just as many of the records
of 2015 broke those set only one year earlier, 2016 has broken or is
poised to break several of 2015’s records..."
Image credit:
"Ocean heat content in 2015 and trends over time." Credit: NOAA
Fewer Americans Doubt Climate Change - But Confidence Is Up On Both Sides. CSMonitor.com has the latest findings: "Two-thirds of all Americans are confident that climate change is real,
and well-supported by evidence, according to a new National Survey on
Energy and Environment (NSEE), a twice-yearly study from the University
of Michigan and Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the
number of respondents who say there is no solid evidence of global
warming is at a record low: just 15 percent, versus 24 percent one year
ago. The NSEE has been measuring public opinion on climate change since
2008, when 72 percent of respondents said global warming was a reality..."
Documenting Glaciers In The Dying Days of Ice. You might want to see Glacier National Park while there are still glaciers to see. Here's the intro to a photo essay from
Climate Central: "
National
Parks have grown up with photography. So it’s only fitting that in the
last days of ice in Montana’s Glacier National Park, Lisa McKeon is
using a camera to show how quickly climate change has killed off the
park’s namesakes. After all, it’s one thing to note that of the park’s
150 glaciers that existed in the late 1800s, only 25 of them remain
today. But it’s another to see what that cold, hard fact looks like on
the landscape..."
Photo credit: "
Park visitors eating dinner at Cracker Lake, a glacial-fed lake in Glacier National Park's backcountry." Credit: Jacob Frank/National Park Service.
Conservatives Must Embrace The Fight Against Climate Change. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
TheHill that resonated: "...
In
my view, the main reason why most conservative politicians deny climate
change is because they believe the issue is simply a front to grow
government. Denying the problem of climate change is easier than
debating solutions. Most of the solutions proposed thus far have
involved imposing more red tape and stringent regulations. What these
conservatives don’t realize is that they have an opportunity to boost
their image, win votes, and promote free enterprise and libertarian
policy solutions by tackling the climate change issue head on rather
than ceding the issue to liberals who use climate change as a vehicle
for big-government policies..."
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