Updraft

It seems counterintuitive, but our wind overnight actually helped keep us warmer! Wind at night mixes up the lower layers of the atmosphere, and that prevents the air near the surface from stratifying, which allows the coldest air to settle near the ground where we live. Air temperatures on windy and calm nights Standard air…

Shortly before dusk last evening I was casually patrolling the neighborhood as another nice weekend was about to come to an end. A few couples were working in tandem to mow the yard and rake the leaves. I paused to converse about the change in the weather that was set to arrive overnight. Most folks…

It’s baaaaack! The cold gales of November will roar in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest with winds gusting to over 40mph. Wind advisories are flying today for much of the state and Wisconsin. Current Minnesota winds and weather Winter Storm Warnings are up for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, as the first lake effect snow of the…

Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend as we return to Central Standard Time (CST). That means at 2 a.m. Sunday, you will stay up late so you can adjust your clocks back one hour to 1 a.m. OK, so maybe you’ll do it before you go to bed and enjoy the extra hour of sleep.…

Over the years I’ve concocted a number of alibis for inaccurate forecasts. In some instances the forecast was flat out wrong. I have also concluded part of my perceived forecast errors have come from the failure to effectively communicate. Folks are sometimes too distracted to hear the whole story. As a NOAA meteorologist for 34…

Most of us recognize November as a big transition month weatherwise, and despite a string of very mild winters, we would be wise to anticipate certain changes. Such as: -Lower freezing levels in the atmosphere that increase chances for frozen precipitation (snow), and lower the decks of clouds above us, more stratoform (layered) in nature.…

One might think this weather business is as simple as throwing a switch. After all, in many instances, the forecast challenge is whether it will be wet or dry, cloudy or sunny. Oh, if it were that easy! So we often hedge with phrases like “A 40 percent chance of precipitation” and overuse the descriptive…

Here’s some news that could critically affect the accuracy of tomorrow’s forecast. Seems the NWS is in the process of changing its radiosondes to a new manufacturer to save some money. The problem is, according to nationally recognized severe storm researcher Bob Maddox and others, the new units seem to have real data problems. They…

Wait a few days! That could have been the morning weather headline on Oct. 29, 1991. The mercury topped out at 66 degrees for a delightful late autumn day. Forecasters were nervously eyeing computer models that projected the development of a snowstorm for the upper Midwest. I was mulling over the model output from the…

October has been a little scary. We started the month warm and wet, with three days in the 80s from the 5th through the 7th — and 17 of the first 21 days featured rain. Then Jekyll turned to Hyde, and we’ve seen a dry stretch for the past 11 days. All said and done…