Weather whiplash: From severe storms to snow in the state within a week

CATHY WURZER: So if you were listening to that newscast, you may have heard the word, "snow." It's true. We had severe weather yesterday. By the end of the week, parts of our state could see some snow. You got to love Minnesota just because of that. And you may need to grab a coat to zip up over your Halloween costume, or at least, the kids. Chief meteorologist Paul Huttner is with us right now with the very latest. Oh, where should we start?

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, my--

CATHY WURZER: I don't even know. Let's begin, shall we, with yesterday's severe weather.

PAUL HUTTNER: Sure. And it was pretty feisty, Cathy. It got going in Southwest Minnesota, really. And those storms were hailers. They dropped pretty significant hail. I saw a report of 2 and 1/2 inch diameter hail in Sleepy Eye. That's tennis ball size. Did some damage to some car windshields there. 2 inch diameter in Sanborn, Green Isle about 1.75 inches. That's a little under golf ball size. Lambertian had the same amount of hail. And then about 1 inch hail right into the Twin Cities. And Cathy, I love how you pick little towns and places, but I did not know there was a Rolling Stone, Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Yes.

PAUL HUTTNER: It's in the southeastern part of the state, west of Winona. They had 1.5 inch diameter hail.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: And I guess there's a little place called the Hideaway Tavern and Grill there.

CATHY WURZER: That is a true statement, my friend, because I've been there.

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, my.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, yes, I know. I'm wondering, somebody, just yesterday, said-- this is a person new to the state-- said, well, I'm kind of surprised that you guys would have severe weather this time of the year. And I'm like, yeah, actually, we've had weird, weird weather in November, and sometimes, even, December. So is our severe weather season stretching out longer because of climate change?

PAUL HUTTNER: It is. And remember that the December 15 tornadoes we had a couple of years ago that just set all kinds of records in Minnesota, southeast Minnesota, that was a month later than the previous record for tornadoes, right, which was in the middle of November.

So we are stretching the bounds of this severe weather season, both earlier in spring, but especially in fall, because fall is the second fastest warming season in Minnesota. So we've got that heat around, we've got the moisture around. 92 degrees on October 1, that was the latest we've ever been that hot in the year in the Twin Cities.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: And yesterday, another example of having that energy around. And by the way, we saw over 2 inches of rain, South Metro, Bloomington, Apple Valley, Prior Lake, and as much as 3 to 4 inches, Cathy, down around Lake City, Winona, and Chatfield with those storms.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, OK, well, but we still have that drought to contend with. Just, we don't need all that rain all this at once, you know? So I'm wondering about this storm system. Kind of interesting storm system here tonight, into tomorrow?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, the one for Minnesota coming in is, indeed, interesting. Here's the deal. It's moving in later tonight and tomorrow. It'll be all rain for the Twin Cities, southern central Minnesota. But it will be snow in the northwestern corner of the state. In fact, most of the models I'm looking at, Cathy, are forecasting snow, especially as we get into tomorrow, tomorrow night, into early Friday, and some of them saying as much as a foot of snow in far northwest Minnesota. Hallock sits up in the northwest corner.

You could get a foot of snow with this system over the next couple of days. There are winter storm warnings out for North Dakota. I have a hunch they might be expanded into parts of northwest Minnesota. And some of the forecast models are saying an inch or two or three of snow as far south as Fargo and maybe as far east as International Falls. So northwest Minnesota, get ready. The snow is coming. And then, Cathy, the European model is giving us a little gift in the Twin Cities for Saturday.

CATHY WURZER: Stop it, no.

PAUL HUTTNER: I know.

CATHY WURZER: Stop.

PAUL HUTTNER: I know. It's the only model, but it's hinting at snow, maybe 1 to 3 inches across southern Minnesota. So we'll see. It's still an outlier. But we could get some flakes on Saturday in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: The ground's too warm. I mean, obviously. It's not going to stick.

PAUL HUTTNER: It won't last, that's for sure.

CATHY WURZER: OK, which is good at this point. So I'm wondering here, trick or treaters next Tuesday, right? That's Halloween. It sounds like it's going to be cold for the kids.

PAUL HUTTNER: It does. It looks cold. I think we're going to see highs mostly in the 30s across Minnesota, and trick or treat temps maybe falling into the 20s. So the Will Steger polar explorer costumes still a good idea this year. And I think it might even be an early Halloween because I think the brave that do go out will want to get inside pretty early this year.

CATHY WURZER: So this is because you were mentioning flakes over the weekend, and then, of course, cool weather next week. I'm going to assume, then, that somewhere along the line, we got to have that hard frost in the Twin Cities between now and then, right?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I think we're going to end the growing season this weekend in the Twin Cities. The low is below freezing for the first time since April 25. That's a pretty long growing season for us.

CATHY WURZER: Say, and I can't go by without mentioning something about Hurricane Otis because I do have friends in Acapulco. I've not heard from them, as a matter of fact.

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, my.

CATHY WURZER: And I'm a little worried because this thing looked massive.

PAUL HUTTNER: This is stunning, Cathy. I mean, and I caught on to this only about the end of work yesterday into last evening because this thing went from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in about 12 hours. That is the fastest, rapid intensification on record for any storm, it looks like.

And if you think about rapid intensification where these hurricanes intensify quickly, the criteria is a 35 mile an hour wind speed increase in 24 hours or less, right? This went 110 miles an hour in terms of a wind speed increase in about 24 hours. Those winds went from tropical storm strength to 165 miles an hour at landfall, Cathy. It's the first category 5 on record to hit the Eastern Pacific and make a landfall there on the coast of Mexico.

And what happened is it hit this super warm bubble of water, 88 degrees, maybe 90 degrees, offshore from Acapulco, and it just blew this storm up. Now, the obvious question, is this climate change? And the answer seems to be unequivocally yes. John Abraham with the University of Saint Thomas here in the Twin Cities, Kevin Trenberth with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, they've worked extensively and produced papers on 90 plus percent of our climate warming going into the oceans, right?

Well, this is an example where these oceans give back that heat into these storms, and we see this unprecedented, rapid intensification. So the climate change link is strong here. But I'll tell you what, the models did not pick up on this storm, Cathy. Only one suggested it might become a category 5 storm, and it didn't see this days in advance. Even yesterday, early, the models failed on this.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: They just can't handle this kind of rapid intensification in 12 hours or so. And you have to ask yourself and say, is this the new era we're in where we're just going to see these horrific monster storms morph and blow up from tropical storms to category 5 in 12 hours? That is a nightmare scenario for hurricane forecasters. So, yeah, fingers crossed and thoughts and prayers and everything for Acapulco. It looks like this was a devastating blow.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I think it's interesting, then, that you're going to be talking on Climate Cast tomorrow about climate change fueled extreme storms.

PAUL HUTTNER: Indeed, and what it's doing to the global insurance market, Cathy, because if you don't believe in climate change, ask your insurance agent, right? Florida, I've talked to folks. They had a 40% increase in their insurance rates in one year.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: And Gris did a piece on this about the insurance industry. It's blowing away their catastrophic loss models. It's changing the way insurance is working and not working. So we'll talk about that tomorrow on Climate Cast during All Things Considered.

CATHY WURZER: Boy, a lot going on. All right, Paul Huttner, thank you.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Paul Huttner is our chief meteorologist. And yes, you can listen to Paul and Tom Crann every afternoon on All Things Considered, right here on MPR News.