Temperature Roller Coaster. The European ECMWF model hints at highs
holding in the upper 30s to near 40 Saturday - I suspect we'll see highs
in the 40s, but just barely. And then 3 days later the mercury soars
into the 70s, in fact we may see 3-4 days above 70 next week. Don't
despair: spring will stage a comeback.
Sliding Into A Wetter Pattern? Models are all
predicting more than .5" rain from tonight into Saturday, another slug
of significant rain the middle of next week. Again, we need about 3-6"
to start replenishing lake water levels. As we transition into a warmer
pattern I'm hoping we'll see more frequent storms capable of pulling
Gulf moisture north into Minnesota. The trends are encouraging.
Try Not To Throw Your Computer Out The Nearest Window.
I was really hoping not to show you this graphic again until...October
(?). Models suggest a slushy coating of snow for the MSP metro Saturday
morning, maybe an inch on some lawns, fields and dazed robins. 2-3"?
Possible, but I think the odds favor less. I sure hope so. You've been
warned.
Saturday Slop-Fest? I think the NAM may be overdoing
the snow for central and southeastern Minnesota, but the last few runs
have been fairly consistent. As much as I'd like to overlook the snowy
possibilities, it'll be a close call, and I wouldn't be at all shocked
to see a few towns from Alexandria to the Twin Cities to Rochester pick
up a couple inches of slushy, sloppy snow.
* Even if it snows, chances are it'll melt by midday or afternoon -
the sun is simply too high in the sky for snow to linger for lawn.
** Surface temperatures should be in the mid 30s early Saturday
morning, so I suspect most roads will remain wet. That said, if it snows
hard enough a little slush could build up on secondary roads and
bridges, especially outside the metro. It's late April, right? This is
the kind of event that tests Minnesota's collective sense of humor.
A "Worthy Rain". Yes, it may be an old-fashioned
soaking, anywhere from .5 to 1" of rain for the Twin Cities, the latest
NAM hinting at over 1" of rain for the southern suburbs, maybe some 1.5"
amounts for far western Minnesota.
18. The Duluth metro area was recently ranked 18th
among the "Top 25 Cleanest Cities for Year-round Particle Pollution" in
the USA, according to the American Lung Association. Photo courtesy of
Wikipedia.
"
Three out of four U.S. voters favor regulating carbon dioxide as
a greenhouse-gas pollutant, and a majority think global warming should
be a priority for the president and Congress, a survey of American
attitudes on climate and energy reported on Thursday." - from a Reuters/Chicago Tribune story; details and links below.
Today's Severe Threat. According to
NOAA SPC
a few storms may exceed severe limits from Wichita to Kansas City and
Tulsa later today: hail, damaging winds, even a few isolated tornadoes.
Rare Beast: For Many, March Was Warmer Than April.
In Meteorology 1 they teach you the days of the week, which finger to
point to the weather map with, and that temperatures warm up as spring
wears on. Not any more. No, up is down, left is right, and for much of
Minnesota April will wind up cooler than March, more evidence of "global
weirding"? Andrew Freedman from
Climate Central has more details: "
March
2012 is the month that just keeps on giving when it comes to warm
temperature records in the United States. Given the widespread,
long-lasting and unprecedented heat wave, March came in like a lamb, and
went out like . . . a grilled lamb. It was the warmest such month on
record in the Lower 48 states, exceeding the average by a whopping 8.6
degrees F. That heat has helped nearly 140 climate reporting stations,
including in major cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee,
achieve a rare feat: record a cooler April to date compared to March,
according to a Climate Central analysis of temperature data through April 24."
Map credit above: "
Locations where average temperatures
during April 2012 are likely to be cooler than March was, according to
Climate Central research. Click for an interactive version."
Redesigned Weather.gov Preview For Public Comment. Check out
NOAA's new look, and comment if you feel the need. Details: "
We
are pleased to announce that the weather.gov redesign is now ready for
final comment from National Weather Service customers and partners. We
welcome comments on the live preview site. They can be provided
through May 18 using the link below."
Minnesota Is Still Much Too Dry. Here is why I won't moan and groan about rain, even on a Saturday. According to the latest
Drought Monitor
most of southern Minnesota is still in a severe drought, the metro is
in a moderate drought (Washington County not quite as dry). The drought
has eased slightly over the Red River Valley and the northern third of
Minnesota. If we don't get a few significant rainstorms in the coming
weeks the impact on agriculture and lake water levels by summer may be
severe - we are running a 3-7" rainfall deficit since last September.
Photo Of The Day: "Supercell". This is what a
tornado-producing thunderstorm looks like, a lowering, rotating wall
cloud to the right, the entire, violently rising column of air "sheared"
into the wind, literally tilting to the left, evidence of powerfully
changing wind speed and direction with altitude, hail swept out ahead of
the storm, protecting the warm updraft. This may be the best example of
a rotating "supercell" thunderstorm I've ever seen, courtesy of NOAA
Skyward spotter Paul Brooks, who writes: "
I am From Muscatine, Iowa,
and a certified spotter for NOAAand Skywarn. I evaluated the SPC
MesoAnalysis all day yesterday, and noticed that there was an area that
was primed for a very isolated, strong storm in the area around the
Iowa/Missouri/Illinois borders, and left my place around 4pm and barely
made it to my target site of Cantril by 6:30, which was when the storm
really started to explosively grow and then rotate. Thank you for the
recognition."
* check out Paul's photo collection (available for purchase or license)
here, courtesy of Facebook.
7 Extremely Weird Apps For Your iPhone or Android. If you're looking for the most useless and obscure apps for your smartphone you've come to the right place; details from
ReadWriteWeb: "
Smartphones and tablets can do some amazing things. You can track your exercise, organize your life,
play amazing games and reach any media you would ever want to find.
The Apple App Store and Android's Google Play can be home to some odd
stuff, too. Really odd stuff."
Apple's iPhone 5 Made Of Metallic Glass And Arrives In October. Rumor and iSpeculation from
Forbes.com: "
Two interesting little rumours about the next generation of Apple‘s iPhone, what we assume will be called the iPhone 5. The first is that it will be made, at least in part, of metallic glass.
The second is that it will arrive in October. Let’s deal with the easy
one first, the arrival date. Rather than the previously assumed summer
launch it will be later. The basic reason is that Qualcomm,
makers of some of the necessary chips, cannot ramp up production fast
enough, thus the delay. The second is more complicated: metallic glass
is an odd material and many will get this wrong. A possibly more
accurate description would be glassy metal."
645 Pro Turns Your iPhone Into A Mini-DSLR Camera.
Can you tell I have an iPhone? Totally impartial. Yeah, I'm a fanboy.
It's amazing what you can squeeze out of a smartphone. The best phone is
the one you always have on you, right? Details from
Redmond Pie: "
While
the iPhone 4/4S camera have both managed to displace some of the more
popular standalone cameras on sites such as Flickr, many of those with
professional photographic nous still don’t view the Apple smartphone’s
camera as a serious choice. With good reason, too. Many of the apps make
it easy to create and manipulate an image, and as such, the benchmark
for what one would consider "good photography" has become somewhat
hazy. 645 PRO, an iPhone 4S-specific camera app, tries – and often
succeeds – to offer a more feature-rich, professional image-snapping
experience."
One Word: Hope. With slushy snow in the Saturday
outlook some of my friends and family members are despairing. Even my
dog, Leo, is moping around the house. Maybe it's my imagination. Cut
down on the meds, Paul. Here's the deal: Sunday will feel like spring,
70s likely by Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm starting to feel more like a
psychologist than a meteorologist. Yes, this too shall pass.
Whispering The S-Word
"Some people walk in the rain, others just get
wet" wrote Roger Miller. We need the rain, yes. It's the s-n-o-w we can
live without.<p>After an extraordinarily warm March I've been
waiting for the other shoe to drop. An average April (ha!) brings nearly
3 inches of slush. The beauty of a late-April snow (if I can use those
words in the same sentence): whatever falls melts within hours. The sun
is simply too high in the sky for slush to linger for long.
A cold rain overspreads central and southern
Minnesota tonight, models hinting at enough cold air in the lowest mile
of the atmosphere for a period of wet snow Saturday morning. Some models
are printing out a few inches of slush for southeastern Minnesota,
maybe a coating for the metro early? But with temperatures above 32 F
roads will be wet. Saturday will be a good day for spring housecleaning,
day-dreaming and Facebooking your weather complaints to friends in
warmer climes. Check the blog for snow updates. Yeah, I hope the models
are out to lunch too.
Sun returns Sunday with highs topping 60. 70s
return early next week, a shot at 80 by Wednesday. We may see enough
moisture and instability for a few strong to severe T-storms next
Tuesday and Wednesday. Something to look forward to. Let's just get past
Saturday
Climate Stories....
U.S. Voters Favor Regulating Carbon Dioxide: Survey. Here's an excerpt from Reuters and
The Chicago Tribune: "
While Democrats are frequently perceived as being "greener" than Republicans
and independents, the survey found sizable majorities of all three
groups favored the tax swap and other environmentally friendly policies,
said Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale Project on Climate Change
Communication. For example, the survey found 75 percent of respondents
support regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas pollutant, which
the Supreme Court ruled legal in 2007 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
has advocated. But looking at the political breakdown on this question,
84 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of
independents favor this regulation."
Behind The Present Pause In Global Warming. Jason Samenow from The Washington Post's
Capital Weather Gang has a very interesting article: "
Has
global warming stopped since the turn of the millennium? Yes - if you
examine the data in a vacuum. But has the warming pressure on the
atmosphere from man-made greenhouse gases stopped? No - not at all. A
closer look at the data bears that out. It’s easy to glance at a
temperature chart of the last 12 years (to the right) and draw the
conclusion warming has slowed or stopped. That’s what renowned
environmental scientist James Lovelock did and he’s now told MSNBC he’s backed away from his dire concerns about global warming."
Graphic credit above: "
The
temperature departure from the 1951-1980 average over the last 12
years. Trend is about flat (slightly up). (Data from NASA)."
Ford Brings Contrasts Of Electric And Gas Cars Into Sharper Focus. The L.A. Times reports: "
Car
shoppers will soon find two Ford Focus sedans sitting side by side
when they visit the dealership — one with a gas tank and another with
batteries. In a milestone for the auto industry, an automaker will give
consumers an option to purchase the same model of a vehicle with either
a traditional combustion engine or one powered only by electricity. It
will mark the first time that buyers can compare the different
powertrains on the same car. An electric Focus, next to the gas
version, provides, "more transparency to what it means to pay for an
electric vehicle," said Thilo Koslowski, an automotive analyst at
research firm Gartner Inc."
Which Electric Car Is Best For You? (Comparison). CNET.com has a great on-line tool to help you shop for the electric (EV) car that's right for your specific needs: "
Waving
goodbye to your local gas station used to involve waiting lists,
lease-only pilot programs, or dropping six figures on an early
adopters' plaything like the Tesla Roadster. These days, just about
anyone can walk into a local dealership, plunk down $35,000, and drive
away in a car that doesn't have a tailpipe. No, the 2012 Nissan Leaf, 2012 Ford Focus Electric, and 2012 Mitsubishi i-MIEV
aren't the first electric cars to hit the market. However, they are in
the first batch of fully electric, zero-emissions vehicles that are
priced and packaged for mass consumption. Each seats four or five adults
comfortably, has space for cargo and groceries, and packs much of the
same (if not better) cabin technology and creature comforts as its
gasoline-powered stablemates."
What's Nibbling At Antarctic Ice Shelves? Warm Water From Below, Not Hot Air Above, Study Says. Details from AP and
The Washington Post: "
Antarctica’s
massive ice shelves are shrinking because they are being eaten away
from below by warm water, a new study finds. That suggests that future
sea levels could rise faster than many scientists have been predicting.
The western chunk of Antarctica is losing 23 feet of its floating ice
sheet each year. Until now, scientists weren’t exactly sure how it was
happening and whether or how man-made global warming might be a factor.
The answer, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal
Nature, is that climate change plays an indirect role — but one that
has larger repercussions than if Antarctic ice were merely melting from
warmer air."
Mr. Obama Needs To Show He's Serious About Climate Change. Here's an excerpt of an Op-Ed at
The Washington Post: "
IN AN INTERVIEW that Rolling Stone published Wednesday, President Obama said that he thinks climate change will be a big issue
in the coming election and that he will be “very clear” about his
“belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with
climate change in a serious way.” That would be a welcome switch. So
far, dealing forthrightly with the world’s rising temperatures has been
far down the list of priorities in Washington, and the president has
shown little willingness to stick his political neck out on the issue.
In his first two years, he chose to push through health-care reform and
then financial reform instead of energy legislation.
Mr. Obama’s attempts to revive the Democrats’ cap-and-trade plan
during the 2010 election season quickly led to nothing, as have his
more recent but barely discussed proposals to require utilities to
generate more power from clean sources."
President Obama And Climate Change (As A Campaign Issue). Here is an excerpt from the recently released interview with
The Rolling Stone: "
Part
of the challenge over these past three years has been that people's
number-one priority is finding a job and paying the mortgage and
dealing with high gas prices. In that environment, it's been easy for
the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk
climate-change science. I suspect that over the next six months, this is
going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will
be very clear in voicing my belief that we're going to have to take
further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way. That there's
a way to do it that is entirely compatible with strong economic growth
and job creation – that taking steps, for example, to retrofit
buildings all across America with existing technologies will reduce our
power usage by 15 or 20 percent. That's an achievable goal, and we
should be getting started now."
Climate Change Obama Can Believe In: Why Global Warming Will Heat Campaign Trail In Coming Months. Here's a snippet of an essay from Shawn Lawrence Otto at
Huffington Post: "
This
means we will be likely to see more efforts like the recent attacks on
NASA and the EPA as an agenda of deep environmental deregulation
becomes a central campaign battleground. Whether Romney himself will be
able to surf that successfully without alienating mainstream voters
will be an important question. Recent polls, including ours, show
voters are less concerned over the environment than at any time in
recent memory, so anti-regulation forces likely see this as an
opportunity. But climate is the notable exception, and if the extreme
weather of last March and last year are any indication of things to
come, global warming is going to be heating the campaign trail even more
in the months ahead."
Public Split Over Elimination Of U.S. Energy Subsidies, Poll Finds. Details from The L.A. Times: "
The
American public is divided about whether to eliminate federal
subsidies for any form of energy and is giving less support to nuclear
power and U.S. funding of renewable energy, a new poll has found.
Fifty-four percent of respondents opposed doing away with subsidies for
oil, gas, coal, nuclear or renewable energy, while 47% favored the
idea. Support for building more nuclear power plants has fallen
dramatically, to 42% from 61% in 2008. The Yale-George Mason
University poll being released Thursday found that 76% of Americans
support regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas pollutant and that
two-thirds believe the U.S. should pursue policies to reduce its
carbon footprint."
Photo credit above: "
Wind turbines near Mojave, Calif., generate power. (Al Seib, Los Angeles Times / March 22, 2011)."
Interactive: MIT Researchers Map Energy Use And Building Material Intensity Across USA Cities. An interesting article at
The Guardian; here's an excerpt: "
Urban
environment experts from MIT and the Technical University of Lisbon
(IST) have produced a richly detailed interactive tool for exploring
material and energy use in US cities. The Neighborhood Visualizer was
created by David Quinn and Daniel Wiesmann of Urban Metabolism
Research, advised by Professor John E Fernandez (MIT) and Professor
Paulo Ferrao (IST). It maps population density and per-capita usage of
energy and building materials across US cities, with data visualised
right down to neighbourhood level. You can find more information about
how the tool was built here. Explore the map by typing the name of a city and then zooming in on any local area."
