Friday rain; El Nino chances 80% by winter
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Call it a bookend week.
Monday featured a rambunctious wave of severe thunderstorms. Friday features scattered showers and mostly non-severe boomers that favor the morning and midday hours. In between we've enjoyed three gloriously dry and blissful weather days.
Our next low pressure wave slides in Friday. Scattered showers and thunderstorms roam the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Here's the latest surface map animation from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the front and showers bands moving through Friday:
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Most of the storms should be garden variety, and NOAA's Storm Prediction Center does not include Minnesota in any severe weather risk Friday. That honor falls to Rapid City, South Dakota, Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, where stronger storms could reach severe limits. (1 inch+ diameter hail and 58-plus miles per hour winds)
Half-decent weekend?
That's a throw away line, but it may actually work for the weekend forecast.
Latest model runs show about half of the weekend may be sunny and warm, with clouds and a nagging thunder threat the other half. Note the wind shift (lower right) late Sunday as a potent July cold front drops south.
A preview of coming attractions for early next week.
Play ball! Coolest MLB All-Star Game on record?
Talk about keeping out the riff-raff.
How about a nationally televised event like the MLB Home Run Derby with fans huddling in sweatshirts as big hulking Under Armour-clad hitters pound the baseball into the chilly swirling northwest gusts? Launch one into the jet stream over Target Field and watch the fireworks as balls clear the Plaza in right-center?
Did I mention it's mid-July in Minnesota?
Monday evening could be downright nippy at Target Field: Temperatures in the mid 60s, a gusty northwest wind and I can't rule out a few passing showers. Lovely.
Tuesday evening's All-Star Game looks cool, but temperatures and winds should ease for a much more pleasant experience.
Here's the latest from NOAA via Weatherspark:
Smoky skies, vivid sunsets?
You may have noticed the whitish tint to the sky Thursday over Minnesota.
That smoky pall is from wildfires in Canada drifting high aloft over Minnesota. The smoke will be fighting the incoming clouds for attention, but may produce some vivid colorful sunrises and sunsets in the near future.
El Nino chances reach 80% by winter
In case you're looking for that cocktail party tidbit this weekend, NOAA's latest ENSO Diagnostics Discussion ups the chances of a full blown El Nino event to 80 percent by this winter. Here are some snippets from today's release:
EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO)
DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
issued by
CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS
and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society
10 July 2014
ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Watch
Synopsis: The chance of El Niño is about 70% during the Northern Hemisphere summer and is
close to 80% during the fall and early winter.
Over the last month, no significant change was evident in the model forecasts of ENSO, with the majority of models indicating El Niño onset within June-August and continuing into early 2015 (Fig. 6).
The chance of a strong El Niño is not favored in any of the ensemble averages for Niño-3.4. At this time, the forecasters anticipate El Niño will peak at weak-to-moderate strength during the late fall and early winter (3-month values of the Niño-3.4 index between 0.5°C and 1.4°C).
The chance of El Niño is about 70% during the Northern Hemisphere summer and is close to 80% during the fall and early winter (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome).
Finally tonight it appears I may have arrived as one of the world's leading "Top 50 Best Natural Disaster Experts."
How did that happen anyway? Now I can live the rest of my life in peace knowing my tweets on MPRweather are effective at frightening small children and pets, and maybe giving some weather watchers a heads up on severe weather.
Thanks for this, I think. Seriously, it's good company to be sure and it's just corporate PR -- but I'm grateful our weather tweets have an audience.