TS Bertha Sets a Record

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog tells us that Tropical Storm Bertha has formed way east in the Atlantic. It is the

farthest east a tropical storm has ever formed in the Atlantic so early in the season. It is also the farthest east a tropical storm has formed in the month of July. Reliable records of Eastern Atlantic storms go back to 1967, the beginning of the geostationary satellite era.

Of course it is a long, long way from hitting anything in the Western Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico if it ever does. But the early eastern formation does bring about the question if this is an omen of a stronger or busier hurricane season. Dr. Jeff answers:

Probably. According the the Hurricane FAQ, "as shown in (Goldenberg 2000), if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the eastern portion of the Main Development Region [MDR] for Atlantic hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999, total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at least average and often times above average. So it could be said that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a "sufficient" condition for a year to produce at least average activity."

Could become interesting. Let us hope not.

I'll Stop Whining

My whining about the weather where I am has been exposed by developments in other parts of the Midwest for what it is. Selfish whining. I just spent five minutes watching pictures on the Star-Trib website of the flooding in Wisconsin and Iowa. The Wisconsin flooding isn't all that far from where I used to live and I know some of those places. In addition where I lived had nearly 8" of rain in two days and a lot of people are having problems.

And there I sat on Saturday whining that my band concert was cancelled.

Mea culpa.

Isn't it amazingly sad how narrow-minded we can become? All we can see is what is right in front of us. I don't remember who said it but I read or heard a speaker talking about how we respond when we hear an ambulance go by or firetrucks heading down the street. How many times might we pray, "Don't let it be my house or someone I know." What we are saying is "Please let it be someone else's house or someone else's friend."

Yeah, I was taken aback when I first heard that. What we should pray for is for God's presence with whoever is facing a potential disaster in their lives. Or how about the person who says they are grateful that God rescued them. Why then did God not rescue the other person?

Now, we are getting into some pretty heavy stuff, I realize. The whole book of Job is a long wrestling with that issue. I guess for me the bottom line is to put my own issues and selfishness in perspective. I should be grateful for what I have instead of whining about what I don't. Not that I'm glad that the weather hit someone else and not me, but that could be me some other time.

Humility is always important.

Zero for Two

Well, I can't seem to play in a concert. After two and a half years of not playing in a band I was so excited to be able to play in a community band again. Practices and rehearsals led up to a March concert- and I got sick.

Well, along came more rehearsals and more practicing and what promised to be an even better concert, playing some different and fun arrangements. We got all set up, ran some warm-ups, and were all set. For an outdoor concert. When the lady comes running out of a nearby apartment telling us there's a tornado warning.

Some of us (including a couple storm spotters) looked around and realized that the storms were southeast of us and moving to the northeast. Not a problem. So we quickly started the concert and finished the first song. And yes, the tornado warning was supposedly for the city and we should quit.

Looking at the radar when I got home I am not sure the warning was for the whole city, especially since no sirens went off. But we wouldn't have been able to finish the concert anyway since rain came along.

So now I'm zero for two on concerts. Next will be a repeat of today's concert in a nearby town as part of a community band festival. Maybe someone should warn them that I'm coming.

But, mother nature does seem to have allowed summer to arrive. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Slowly But surely

I saw cottonwood fluff blowing around last evening as I drove to my coffee shop for some reading time. The clouds that had made the day dismal had broken up. The wind that had been howling all day began to settle down. The dew point was a lot lower and the air had a sharpness to it that allowed the evening sun to paint the trees and buildings with a special orange hue.

Slowly but surely I continue to hope that spring will happen.

And even more so that summer will too. I am waiting to buy my bicycle when I will be able to ride it and not just look at it. Every time I have the time, the weather gets in the way.

It is also unusual to still have the parking lot plant nurseries selling their full range of plants this time in June.

Yet people were sitting on the balconies of the apartment building last night enjoying what we have. I sat at my front window enjoying the sight of sunset colors and spring green.

Nice. Very nice.

Checking the Calendar

According to those in the know, meteorological summer begins on June 1 and runs through August 31 unlike the astronomical summer which waits for the summer solstice and ends with the autumnal equinox.

Will someone please tell Mother Nature about this important bit of news.

The Gang's All Here

Hail. Hail.

That's what's in these pictures from a storm that went roaring through about 5 o'clock this afternoon. It probably hailed for about 20 minutes with some larger than quarters in diameter.


And yes, when I looked at my car there were a few hail dents in the hood. But hey, it has 109,000 miles on it and has always been in Minnesota, so I guess that's not too bad.

Random Wanderings of the Mind

It has continued to be a cold month. It may be the year that spring forgot. Yesterday's high was only 57 degrees F. which is 15 degrees below normal. The low temp was down near 40 for two mornings in a row. If we hadn't had clouds last night we might have had frost here in southern Minnesota because the dew point was 32. What has made it worse is when spring has shown up we ended up with the tornadoes around here including an F5 in Iowa. No, it isn't the coolest May on record I am sure, but it isn't one I wanted after the seemingly endless winter we had.

Then imagine my sadness last evening when I got to the coffee shop and looked across the street at the flower garden. And all the tulips were gone. The bed was empty. They had been really pretty, too. Well, tonight there are things planted over there that offer the hope for summer. Notice I said hope and not promise. I will not accept any promise made about a summer of 2008. The only way I know spring has come is the orange barrels marking the road construction.

But in truth I have very little to whine about as I have been watching the destruction from tornadoes here in the Midwest, the devastation in Myanmar followed by the insensitive paranoia of the government there, and the destructive power of the earthquake in China. Listening the other evening to a report from there on NPR they were talking about the fact that China has had a general one child per family policy. They pointed out that many of the children killed in the earthquake were their parents' only child. I hadn't even thought about that. As a parent of an only child I stopped just before it got to that place where a parent's mind can't go. Yes I can feel some of the pain, but unless you experience it, it is only a deep pain you can't allow to come to its full fear. Nature is not as benign as we sometimes romanticize it to be. And yes it is true that life really isn't fair.

A Picture of a Moment of Fear

This is a picture of the radar on Weather Underground on Sunday as a tornado was hitting the St. Paul, MN, suburb of Hugo. (At the white circled cross hatch.) It is a classic radar picture of a tornadic storm in action. Even a quick look shows the "hook echo" that you hear meteorologists talk about. This picture and others are posted on Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog. There is also a link there to a 12-frame radar animation of the storm barreling across the northern Twin Cities Metro and radar pictures of the Parkersburg, IA, storm.

This has been a record setting, devastating spring storm season. They say some of it is due to La Nina. Whatever it is, may it end soon.

Global Warming is Not a Local Thing

Dr. Jeff Masters at his weather blog from Weather Underground had a couple of interesting bits on Friday. First:

April 2008 was the 13th warmest April for the the globe on record, according to statistics released by the National Climatic Data Center. The January-April year-to-date period ranked twelfth warmest.

That in spite of a La Nina event that brings cooling. But to show that when we talk about global warming it is important to remember that we can't look at any one place for the statistics. A good example that Masters gives in the next item:

For the contiguous U.S., April was the coolest April in 11 years for the lower 48 United States, and fell into the lowest twenty-five percent of all Aprils based on records going back to 1895, making it the 29th coolest April on record.

I can attest to that here in the great northern state of Minnesota. My guess is that at least in this neck of the woods May is going to be cool, too, unless things warm up a lot in the next few days. (Example of our coolness is that this was the first fishing opener in 13 years where there was any ice on northern lakes.)

All those who poo-poo global warming use the coolness here to "prove" that global warming is a hoax. We must remember that we are dealing with more than a local area, even the size of the lower 48 United States. On a global scale things are getting warmer, even with a La Nina event. Yes, it was cool in the lower 48 United States. Imagine how much warmer the rest of the world was.

Ugh!

9:15 pm
Friday, April 25, 2008
A brief but oh so very very real

Snow Shower

as the temperature has dropped over 25 degrees today

and there are blizzard warnings! in NW Minnesota.

Again- ugh!

Hooray! It Didn't Happen

Remember my whining about the coming winter storm forecast for today?

Well, it didn't happen. It's not going to be spring warm yet, but at least I can still see the sidewalk.

To Which We Answer....

Yes, it CAN be far behind.

Here again, from our not so hippy-dippy weather forecast office for Rochester, MN:

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH
THURSDAY EVENING...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH
THURSDAY EVENING.

Now it should be noted that last week's Winter Storm didn't quite hit us as was expected. However, it did hit other places nearby. Maybe this one will fizzle? Will this winter never end?

Aaahhhh- It Feels Better Already - Maybe

0548 UTC (0048 CDT)

Spring.

Or Does it?

And then a quick look at the National Weather Service page for, yes, today, the first day of spring here in beautiful southern Minnesota:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY EVENING THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING.

No! It can't be! It was so beautiful yesterday. NO!

So, in order to change the perspective I am going to see it as a SPRING STORM WARNING. See, it does feel better that way.

An Odd Sight

If anyone can help me that would be appreciated. I looked out a window at work today into a nice enclosed courtyard. The ground was this unusual color mixture of green and brown.

What happened to the white that had been there soooooo long?

A sign of the end- or of hope?

And Yes, As Bad As I Thought

Here in Rochester, MN, this is what was in today's paper:

There's been an inch or more of snow on the ground continuously since Dec. 1, the start of "meteorological winter." The National Weather Service considers December, January and February as its official winter.

That's 91 days of not seeing your grass or any other patch of bare ground.

According to weather service forecaster Jeff Boyne, it's only the 10th time the snowpack has lingered that long since 1938-39, when the service started tracking such things. In a typical winter, snow would be around for only 66 days during meteorological winter.

Actually, the snow first arrived on Nov. 30; today, nearly a week into March, we're at 98 straight days and counting. The record for snow covering dates back to the winters of 1978-79 and 1950-51, when Rochester area residents didn't see bare ground for 133 straight days.

I knew it. I just knew it.

More Hints of Things to Come - Even at -8

Yes, it was -8 (F) this morning. And it will be another cold and windy night tonight.

BUT......

...... Sunrise is earlier and earlier- at least until March 9 when we switch to daylight time and we go back to dark mornings- but later sunsets.

......The normal temps are now moving up toward the freezing mark.
(Ah- but not the actual temps. Wait, just wait.)

(Star-Tribune)

......I saw this picture on the web yesterday.

...... And I started taking golf lessons at a nearby indoor golf range last weekend. Yes, it was chilly in the place but a lot warmer than outside. But three buckets of balls helped warm things up. Things slowly but surely improve.

Think Warm

I am sick

and

tired of

cold

and

ice

and

snow.

So for today

I will at least try to

think warm.

Sorry Mr. Groundhog- I Take It Back

A week ago I made the mistake of making fun of the Groundhog's ability to forecast the weather. I had a header of something about "silliness."

So tonight I sit at my favorite Caribou Coffee Shop after shivering my way here from home. The temperature this morning was around 22 (F). Now it is -2 (F). Wind is howling at 21 mph with gusts to 35 mph and that is blowing snow into drifts and little whiteouts. The Wind Chill Factor is around -20 (F). More snow is on the way. And we haven't had what southern (yes, southern!) Wisconsin where we used to live has had this winter.

Now I know I should be sitting at home in the warmth. There is no reason to come out here to write and read on the computer. Yes, I am crazy. But I am not allowing the weather to keep from what I enjoy doing.

So, I will therefore stop whining.

For now.

And beg the Groundhog to change his forecast.

A Day to Stay Indoors- IF You Can Get Home

First this:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LA CROSSE HAS ISSUED A BLIZZARD
WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT CST TONIGHT. THE
WINTER STORM WARNING HAS BEEN CANCELED. A WIND CHILL ADVISORY
REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 12 PM CST WEDNESDAY.

...WHITE-OUT CONDITIONS IN SOME LOCATIONS TODAY...SNOW AND
BLOWING SNOW...AND BITTERLY COLD TEMPERATURES TODAY AND TONIGHT...

And then this quote that I have been saving for just such a time as this:

Carl Reiner
"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."

What a wild and wooly day. At 10:00 pm last night it was 41 (F). At 6:00 am it was 18 (F). At 11:30 am it is 2 (F).

Now, if only I can get home.....

Spring's Coming... Happy Friday

Sunset today: 5:01 pm, CST. The days are surely getting longer! Next milestone will be sunrise before 7:30 am. That happens in 12 days.

Now, if the temperatures would only follow suit.

It was 11 (F) at 8:00 this morning. By 11:00 it was under 5 (F)
Tonight's low is supposed to be -14 (F) and tomorrow's high a whopping -2 (F) with tomorrow night back down to -15 (F).

Oh well, one thing at a time.