Updraft®

Over the years, meteorologists have come up with ingredients methods to forecast specific weather events, especially winter snowfalls. Such methods are used along with the numerical guidance models produced by the supercomputers. These methods apply a cookbook-style ingredients list that forecasters can use to estimate the precipitation process and apply to the size and intensity…

Here’s a new twist on climate change. Something is sparkling in Greenland these days, and it’s not ice. It seems the rush is on in Greenland for diamonds. Newly exposed rock that was under a sheet of ice several years ago has revealed some impressive diamond finds, including a 2.4 carat rock in a western…

Doppler radar is a great tool to display the saturation occurring in the atmosphere. The National Weather Service meteorologist can place the radar in an operating mode that slows down the rotation and limits the elevation scan. When revolving in this volume scan, wear and tear on the radar is reduced. With regard to atmospheric…

If skies clear enough and you’re brave enough in the cold tomorrow early starting at 5:26am look low in the southeast sky for the Space Shuttle, followed by the ISS 10 minutes later a little higher in the southern sky. Shuttle and ISS sighting for Minneapolis

From out of nowhere the National Weather Service rolled out an updated wind chill temperature (WCT) in November 2001. As Chief meteorologist for NOAA in the Twin Cities I was stunned that I was excluded from the discussion on this significant change. I believed the old index did exactly what it was designed to do,…

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…