Weekend weather bliss, October warm bias?

Attention Minnesotans.

Drop everything you are doing. Now. Get out there. Spend as many hours as possible outside in in the next few days. Bike, run, boat, swim, putt, walk, languish, repeat.

Yes, our short term weather pattern reminds me of that Old Milwaukee beer commercial of yesteryear.

"It doesn't get any better than this."

This may be the best run of weather for the Upper Midwest this fall. Highs near 80 and a brilliantly colorful late September landscape? A nice easy warm entry sequence into fall after a year that includes an extended polar vortex and June monsoon?

Yeah baby.

Life on the backside

The backside of big sprawling high pressure systems is where you want to live in late September. Warm dry southerly breezes rule into early next week.

Our late summery warmth holds through the weekend and into next week. Here's a model of coming weather events from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Forecast System.

The latest longer range pattern suggest next weekend may be a winner too.

Looking even further ahead, the GFS has done a pretty radical flip flop on temps out to 16 days out.

Keep in mind, temperature trends that far out show less skill. This forecast can and probably will change. But could we be looking at an unseasonably mild and dry start to October this year?

Overall NOAA's 90-day outlook for October, November and December favors warmer than average temps for the Upper Midwest.

Stay tuned.

Undulatus Asperatus: Cracking the cloud code

We live in an era when it seems like most things have already been "discovered." That's why a relatively recent new type of cloud classification in recent years has opened some eyes. 'Gravity waves' in action?

We've talked about this new cloud type before, but my eye caught this great piece from The Verge on the latest new cloud to make the grade.

One of the Cloud Appreciation Society website’s most popular features is an expansive photo gallery where anyone can submit, say, an altocumulus floccus gracing the sky over Cabbagehall, Fife, Scotland, a wispy cirrus formation over Nova Scotia, Canada, or a menacing thunderstorm over Maryville, Tennessee.

The section takes itself as seriously as the rest of the organization, which is to say not very — one of the major branches of the gallery is dedicated to "clouds that look like things," which includes seahorses, ghosts, cyclists, and at least one pterodactyl. The majority of the clouds on display are easily recognizable varieties: featherlike cirrus clouds and big, photogenic cumulus clouds.

But soon after launching the site, Pretor-Pinney received a couple pictures that didn’t quite fit into existing classifications. One image, taken from the 12th floor of an office building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, looked positively apocalyptic — a violent and undulating thing menacing the city skyline.

"They struck me as being rather different from the normal undulates clouds," Pretor-Pinney says, referring to clouds with a wave-like formation. "They were more turbulent, more confused — as if you were underneath the water looking up toward the surface when the sea is particularly disturbed and chaotic."

Every six months or so, Pretor-Pinney says, a similar photo would come into his mailbox. In time, he came to wonder if there was a case to be made for a brand-new cloud type — the first addition to the cloud classification system in half a century.

Climate Cast: Sea level rise and coastal risk

One climate change trend we know for sure. Sea levels are rising around the globe. The precise rate of rise is still a question. But even a foot of additional sea level can ruin your city's day when the next storm surge arrives.

Two hundred million people on the coast at risk by the end of the century? That's a whole different set of problems.

Here's a great piece from Climate Central on which coastal zones are the most at risk to future sea level rise.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For this project, Climate Central has worked closely with The Upshot at the New York Times, where an interactive graphic and more detailed results from our analysis can be found.

Research Report by Climate Central

Every global shore touches the same ocean, and the ocean is rising.

Climate Central just completed a novel analysis of worldwide exposure to sea level rise and coastal flooding. We found that 147 to 216 million people live on land that will be below sea level or regular flood levels by the end of the century, assuming emissions of heat-trapping gases continue on their current trend. By far the largest group — 41 to 63 million — lives in China. The ranges depend on the ultimate sensitivity of sea level to warming.

But even these figures may be two to three times too low, meaning as many as 650 million people may be threatened.