Bracing for Hurricane Dorian from Florida to North Carolina

The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning Monday evening as radar showed a tornadic circulation over eastern Carver County, as well as an area of debris that had been lifted into the air.

The NWS damage survey on Tuesday indicated that it was an EF-1 tornado, with estimated max winds of 90 mph:

The NWS concluded that around 10:08 Monday evening an EF-1 tornado touched down in Carver county, about 2 miles east of Watertown. It was on the ground for about five minutes and its damage track ended about 3 miles north-northeast of St. Bonifacius in Hennepin County. Thankfully, no fatalities or injuries have been reported. The NWS noted that most of the damage was to trees, crops, and machine sheds or outbuildings

There were numerous reports of damaging thunderstorm winds and pockets of large hail as the storms moved through Minnesota Monday evening.

Temperature trends

Wednesday highs will probably only reach the 60s in much of northern and central Minnesota on Wednesday, with around 70 or lower 70s in the south:

Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the upper 70s Thursday, followed by mid-70s Friday and mid to upper 60s this weekend.

Rain chances

Wednesday should be dry in most areas.

Scattered showers and possibly a few thunderstorms could spread across northern and central Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin Wednesday night into Thursday. The Twin Cities metro area could see a few scattered showers and an isolated thunderstorm on Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's North American Mesoscale forecast model shows the potential rain pattern Wednesday night through Thursday:

As always, updated weather information can be heard on the Minnesota Public Radio Network, and you’ll also see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

No 90s or 80s during the State Fair

There is often speculation about how many hot and steamy days we will have during the Minnesota State Fair. In 2013, the official Twin Cities high temp was in the 90s on six of the 12 days of the fair.

This year’s fair featured zero highs in the 90s. We didn’t even have any days with highs in the 80s at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. According to the Minnesota State Climatology Office, the last time that we didn’t see an official Twin Cities high temp of 80 degrees or higher during the Minnesota State Fair was 2009.

Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian is now a high-end Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale that’s used by the National Hurricane Center:

As of Tuesday evening, hurricane force winds extend outward up to 60 miles from the center of Hurricane Dorian, and tropical storm force winds extended outward up to 175 miles.

The National Hurricane Center showed this forecast track for the center of Hurricane Dorian over the next few days:

The forecast graphic depicts the “cone of uncertainty” of the path of the center of Hurricane Dorian.

The National Hurricane Center gave this update Tuesday evening:

Dorian is moving toward the northwest near 6 mph (9 km/h), and a slightly faster motion toward the northwest or north-northwest is expected tonight. A turn toward the north is forecast by Wednesday evening, followed by a turn toward the north-northeast Thursday morning. On this track, the core of Hurricane Dorian will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast and the Georgia coast tonight through Wednesday night. The center of Dorian is forecast to move near or over the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina Thursday through Friday morning.

Dorian’s devastating track

Hurricane Dorian’s strength and slow movement over the past few days brought incredible destruction to portions of the Bahamas:

This was posted on Monday: