Classic October weekend; a supercomputer arms race

Get that first round of leaves up and stoke up the bonfire. It's a classic October weekend in MPR Land.

Fall colors across Minnesota are at or past peak in many places north of the metro this weekend. The ring of fire is slowly moving toward peak around the Twin Cities.

Frosty nights and sunny cool days this weekend are just about perfect for any fall outdoor activity. How about an October weekend doubleheader at The Bank?

Does it get any better than this for football weather?

Minnesota works around the back side of cool high pressure this weekend. That means winds turn into the south and temperatures rebound into the 60s. The next low pressure wave approaches Sunday night.

Scattered showers gradually increase ahead of the front across Minnesota later Sunday.

Here's a closer look at forecast trends into next week. Showers dot the landscape Sunday night and Monday, but overall we soak up more sun than clouds the next week as temperatures gradually warm.

Seeley: Classic Minnesota roller coaster continues

We've noted many times in Updraft how the Crazy Weather Year of 2014 has been one of extremes. My MPR News colleague Mark Seeley picks up on that thread for how October is playing out so far in this week's Weather Talk.

Topic: Roller Coaster Climate Pattern

The climate patterns this month have been classic for Minnesota....that is to say highly variable. We started on the 1st with many reports of daytime temperatures in the 70s F. In fact over 20 western Minnesota communities reported daytime highs of 70 F or above.

Then on the 4th of the month 35 Minnesota communities reported record-setting cold daytime maximum temperatures with their thermometers remaining in the 30s and 40s F all day. Windom only rose to 43 degrees F, while Cass Lake barely reached 38 degrees F for a daytime high.

The next morning (October 5th) Zumbrota (Goodhue County) reported a record-tying minimum temperature of just 23 degrees F (tied October 5, 1952). By October 9th about two-thirds of the state's weather observers have reported at least one frost this autumn.

Also over October 4-5 over 30 communities reported a trace of snowfall, while the Brainerd area reported 0.6 inches, one of the earliest measurable snowfalls observed there.

More recently this week temperatures have moderated and will rise to near seasonally normal levels by early next week. Further temperatures are supposed to be warmer than normal for much of the mid-month period. It is possible many areas of the state will see 70 degrees F again with an extended Indian Summer.

Weather wars: UK Met Office supercomputer getting $161 million boost 

The weather supercomputer arms race between NOAA and Europe continues as the UK Met Office is about to drop $1 million pounds, about $16o.8 million, on a new supercomputer upgrade. Details from the Telegraph.

Next week is the anniversary of probably the most infamous weather forecast in modern history. Poor old Michael Fish has acknowledged that on his tombstone it will read “Here lies Hurricane Fish”, in memory of the TV weatherman who promised there wasn't a hurricane on the way.

Technically, of course, the great storm of 1987 was not a hurricane, but it was the most violent battering Britain had suffered for nearly 300 years – 18 people were killed, 15 million trees were lost. That we remember the forecast almost as much as the devastation says much about the British psyche. The weather and public failure are two topics guaranteed to attract an audience. Combined, we reach for the popcorn.

A quarter of a century on, the Met Office is about to acquire a new weapon designed to prevent such gaffes – a £100 million supercomputer.

This expensive piece of kit has been on the cards for some time. George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced in last year’s Autumn Statement that the Met Office (which gets 85 per cent of its funding from the public purse), would be given money for the project. Now Rob Varley, its new chief executive, has said that the computer is “imminent”, though it still needs to be fully signed off by the Government.

The idea is that the machine – in conjunction with some new software called ENDGame, which has been 10 years in development – will transform the accuracy of weather forecasts, which many weary Britons still complain about on a daily basis.

Weather Channel: Less weather, more click bait? Slow weather day? How about some "weather adjacent" content to keep the site rolling? Bloomberg has an interesting story on how the Weather Channel approaches "weather-related" content on weather.com.

Katz calls these types of stories “weather adjacent,” and during the last two years he’s peppered weather.com with thousands of them. He’s changed the way the Weather Channel’s website presents the weather, doubling the site’s traffic even as viewers drift away from the TV network. People come to his website or mobile app looking for the local forecast; it’s Katz’s job to keep them there with headlines such as “12 Spooky Abandoned Hospitals and Asylums” and “What Does Mars Smell Like?” (Answer: We don’t know yet, but NASA is trying to find out.) Something similar has happened to the Weather Channel itself, where reality programs and morning talk shows have superseded weathermen giving old-fashioned forecasts. Amid all this, the company has ventured into new territory: using its massive collection of weather data to help companies sell products based on the weather. “People’s relationship with weather is changing,” says David Clark, president of the Weather Channel Network. “We have to build products that people really want to consume.”

Weather Channel for sale again? Why not? Weather is a big and profitable commodity. The Weather Channel is apparently looking at another possible sale. More from Bloomberg.

The buyout firms that own Weather Channel Cos. have spoken to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. about strategic options including a possible sale, according to people familiar with the matter. Weather Channel hasn’t begun a formal process or hired a bank, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. Blackstone Group LP, Bain Capital LLC and Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBCUniversal bought Weather Channel Cos. in 2008 for about $3.5 billion. The private-equity firms are interested in exploring the idea of selling all or part of the company, according to two people familiar with the matter. They also may decide to hold their ownership stakes rather than sell, the people said. Representatives for Weather Channel, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, NBCUniversal, Blackstone and Bain declined to comment. Weather Channel, which is distributed to more than 100 million U.S. households, could potentially be sold to a cable network company, while the company’s weather data could be acquired separately, one of the people said. The businesses combined have a value of at least $3.5 billion, the person said.