Updraft®

Oh, the childhood winter dream of a snow day from school. It was a free day from the classroom provided by the coupled handy work of Old Man Winter and Mother Nature. Unfortunately, when the snow days stack up payback can be disheartening. Since December 1st, Dubuque, Iowa has received more than 62 inches of…

Combine light winds, a stagnant air mass, snow melt from Sunday and what do you get? You can barely see your hand in front of your face. Dense fog persists this morning as visibilities are down to nearly 100 feet in some areas from the Twin Cities south to I-90 this morning. Dense fog advisory…

One of the most dreaded phrases that can haunt a meteorologist is, caught by surprise. By nature, weather forecasters know that predicting the weather, particularly long range, remains a challenge. Monitoring computer models, assessing trends and latching on to consistency of model runs determine our confidence level. There are times when a forecaster can sit…

We’re climbing slowly out of the deep freeze as we head into this weekend. From -11 Wednesday morning, we’ll climb into the mid 30’s by Sunday afternoon. Most areas will be about 45 degrees warmer by Sunday than we were on Wednesday morning. It will be interesting to see how warm parts of Minnesota are…

I hit the computer refresh button a couple of times at noon to be sure that the hourly weather roundup was actually up to date. Sure enough, the air temperature was a chilly 20 below zero at midday at both Fergus Falls and Thief River Falls. There was a bit of consolation that winds were…

A hot topic during the month of February has been the lack of snowfall and the intrusions of arctic air. While significant snowfall continues to bypass much of the Gopher State, we have had our fair share of sub zero temperatures and bitter wind chill. Today, I was reminded in an email from a valued…

Some numbers you may find interesting this morning and some you may want to forget! Today is day 20 below zero in the metro this winter. The season average is 30 days at zero or below in the metro. Hopefully we won’t get there this year. The jet stream will lift mercifully north this weekend…

A record daily snowfall of 5.5 inches accumulated on February 17th, Sunday at Des Moines. New snowfall totals of between 6 to 10 inches occurred from southwest to central Wisconsin. In Madison, they added another 3 and a half inches of snow to the already record winter total, now surpassing 83 inches. Sunday’s snowfall Portions…

Desiring the hearts of those Minnesotans longing for warmer temperatures, I can announce that a moderation is about to commence. We’ll gleefully watch the temperature steadily climb during the next 30 hours as milder air from the Plains displaces the very cold air. Minnesota earned National bragging rights about the bitter cold with early morning…

As you awake to another fresh blanket of snow this morning, we start to feel the north wind blow again. Latest snow totals Mid February is the time when we can usually expect to see some moderation in temperatures. As I scan the weather maps days ahead, I see a little cold and a little…