Skip to main content

Posts

A Wet Week in Many Places

A Wet Week in Many Places: Monday, July 8th brought record-setting rainfall to the Washington, D.C. area where Ronald Reagan Airport set a new daily record of 3.44 inches. Wallops Island, VA reported 3.26 inches, and Hagerstown, MD reported 2.71 inches. Flash flooding and street closures were common that day throughout the D.C. Metro Area.

Over July 8-9, 2019 many parts of northwestern Minnesota reported record or near record thunderstorm rainfall. Fargo, ND set a record with 2.20 inches, while across the border in Minnesota Georgetown (Clay County) reported a record 4.47 inches, Hallock (Kittson County) a record 3.58 inches, and Thief River Falls (Pennington County) a record 2.31 inches. Elsewhere places like Moorhead, Fergus Falls, New York Mills, Detroit Lakes, and Ottertail all reported over 2 inches.

Then on July 10th (Wednesday) bands of clouds associated with the formation of Tropical Storm Barry in the Gulf of Mexico brought 3-4 inch rains to portions of Louisiana, flo…
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

July Starts Wet for Many Parts of Minnesota

July Starts Wet for Many Parts of Minnesota: Thunderstorms dominated the last few days of June and the first few days of July. Heavy rains crossed a number of Minnesota counties over the first week of July, bringing over 2.5 inches to at least 60 climate stations. Redwood Falls has already reported over 5 inches for the month, while Milan, Artichoke Lake, and Northfield have reported over 4.5 inches. A number of climate stations reported new daily rainfall records for July 1st including: Redwood Falls with 5.15”, Milan with 4.50”, Bird Island with 4.14”, Canby with 3.10”, Artichoke Lake with 2.73”, Dawson with 2.70”, and Minneota with 2.67”. Then on July 2nd Windom reported a new daily record rainfall of 2.78” and Spring Valley a new daily record of 1.45”. And finally on July 4th, Browns Valley (Traverse County) reported a new daily record rainfall with 2.10 inches.

For the year to date, both Rochester and Owatonna have reported over 30 inches of precipitation, a record-setting …
Post a Comment
Read more

Preliminary June Climate Summary

Preliminary June Climate Summary: Despite a relatively even mixture of days with above normal and below normal temperatures, most climate stations report a mean monthly temperature for June that was close to normal or from 1 to 3 degrees F above normal. Extremes for the month ranged from just 25°F at Tower on June 2nd to near 100°F on June 29. Minnesota reported the lowest temperature in the nation only twice during the month.

Rainfall for June was mostly below normal around the state, especially in north-central and northeastern counties (some communities there received less than 2 inches for the month). Southeastern Minnesota had the most rainfall with portions of Fillmore and Mower Counties getting over 7.5 inches of rain. Lanesboro climate station reported a new daily record rainfall of 2.91 inches on the 16th, and on the same date Preston reported a new daily record rainfall of 2.67 inches. On June 5th Grand Meadow reported a new daily record rainfall for the date with 2.4…
Post a Comment
Read more

Historical Summer Solstice Traumatic Events

Rains and Hail on June 20th:
Thunderstorms rolled across the state on Thursday, June 20th dropping mostly lighter amounts of rainfall, ranging from a quarter to a half inch. However some areas received well over an inch including Redwood Falls, Sleepy Eye, Howard Lake, and Buffalo. Around Owatonna they reported over 2 inches. Reports of widely scattered large hail came from Yellow Medicine, Watonwan, and Martin Counties, and a relatively short-lived tornado touched down in Redwood County near Clements. The rain showers were welcome in some of the drier northwestern areas.
Historical Summer Solstice Traumatic Events:
I thought I would spend this week remembering two famous weather-related historical events that occurred on the Summer Solstice (longest day of the year).

The most recent one was June 21st of 1992 when southern Minnesota recorded its only summer solstice frost in history. Following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, much of the northern hemisph…
Post a Comment
Read more

Two June Frosts in the North

Two June Frosts in the North: After seeing widespread frosts across northern Minnesota on the second of June (many morning low temperatures in the 20s F), June 13th brought widespread temperature readings in the 30s F around the state, and delivered a second round of frosts to northern counties this week. Cotton, Celina, Crane Lake, Cook, Embarrass, Eveleth, Bigfork, Floodwood, Wright, Hibbing, Aitkin, and Cloquet climate stations all reported frost on Thursday morning.

This is a bit unusual in that places like Hibbing, Cotton, and Bigfork usually see one frost in the month of June, but not very often two or more frosts. Back in 1964 some northern climate stations reported 4 frosts during the month of June, while in June of 2004 Embarrass reported 11 frosts, probably a statewide record number.

Weekly Weather Potpourri: This week NOAA announced that its flagship weather forecast model , the Global Forecast System (GFS) was given a significant upgrade to include a new dynamical c…
Post a Comment
Read more