Congrats on making it through one of the weirdest Octobers in Rochester’s recent history. 2nd wettest on record, snow-y, cold, and generally not feeling very fall-ish. Infact, as of today, I see most of the leaves are off the trees and in my yard.

That being said, enjoy some October climate history from the NWS La Crosse. Included is the line-up of soggy Octobers.

A warm front today brought us our fantastically mild Sunday; a cold front sweeping through overnight will give way to slightly cooler, but still seasonably mild, temps for Monday. Look for a breezy afternoon as well, with winds out of the northwest about 10-20mph. Not too shabby of a start to November.

Posted under KTTC, climate

Wondering what the hottest temperature has been on Labor Day? How about rainfall amounts? Chilly overnight lows? The NWS La Crosse has it all in their Labor Day Climate.

Looks like one more day (Tuesday) of our recent streak of dry, sunny days…rain chances are back on Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and…into the weekend. Infact, this weekend is appearing to want to shape up feeling way more fall-ish.

Have a safe and very much enjoyable Labor Day!

Posted under KTTC

Climate stuff is fun. Sink your teeth into these September-y stats:

Average highs for September: at the beginning of the month, average around 74°; dip to around 64° by September 30th.

Average lows for September: at the start, around 53°; down to 43° by the end.

Average Precip for September: September is typically the 5th wettest month of the year, with an average 3.12″ inches of precip. It falls in line behind May (3.53″) and ahead of April (3.01″).

Daylight: One of the reasons why we lose 10° on both the high and low temp side of things: we’ll lose about an hour and 30 minutes of daylight between September 1st and the 30th. Sunrise at the beginning of the month is 6:33 AM and sunset is 7:45 PM; at the end of the month, the sun won’t rise until 7:07 AM and sets at 6:52 PM!

We won’t see normals like this until (gulp) next late May/early June.

Note that these “normals”, including sunrise and sunset, are specifically for the Rochester area.

Posted under climate

Here’s a look at the National Weather Service in LaCrosse’s summary of our summer so far and how it compares to some previous years. 

THROUGH JULY 31ST, THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE AT ROCHESTER
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WAS 65.6 DEGREES.  THIS WAS 2.5 DEGREES BELOW
THE NORMAL OF 68.1 DEGREES.  THIS SUMMER IS CURRENTLY THE 4TH
COLDEST SUMMER THROUGH THIS DATE.  THE LAST TIME THAT ROCHESTER WAS
THIS COLD THROUGH THE FIRST TWO MONTHS OF METEROLOGICAL SUMMER WAS
BACK IN 1992 WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 64.4 DEGREES /2ND
COLDEST SUMMER/.  THE COLDEST SUMMER THROUGH THIS DATE OCCURRED BACK
IN 1958 WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS JUST 63.5 DEGREES.

THE TABLE BELOW SHOWS THE TOP 10 COLDEST METEOROLOGICAL SUMMERS IN
ROCHESTER MN THROUGH JULY 31ST.

COLDEST START TO METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER
      FROM JUNE 1 THROUGH JULY 31
            IN ROCHESTER MN

                 AVERAGE
    RANK       TEMPERATURE       YEAR
    —-       ———–       —-
      1        63.5 DEGREES      1958
      2        64.4 DEGREES      1992
      3        64.7 DEGREES      1969
      4        65.6 DEGREES      2009
      5        66.2 DEGREES      2004
      6        66.3 DEGREES      1993
      7        66.4 DEGREES      1968
               66.4 DEGREES      1960
      9        66.5 DEGREES      1967
     10        66.6 DEGREES      1996
               66.6 DEGREES      1985

THE LARGEST TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES FROM NORMAL THIS SUMMER HAVE BEEN
THE MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES.  SO FAR THIS SUMMER…THE AVERAGE MAXIMUM
TEMPERATURE HAS BEEN 75.2 DEGREES.  THIS IS 3.1 DEGREES BELOW
NORMAL.

THE TABLE BELOW PROVIDES A BREAK DOWN OF THE TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES
FROM NORMAL FOR ROCHESTER MN THIS SUMMER…

                                            DEPARTURE FROM
                                                NORMAL
                                            ————–
JUNE   MONTHLY AVG. TEMP       65.9 DEGREES  -0.2 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MAX TEMP   75.3 DEGREES  -1.3 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MIN TEMP   56.4 DEGREES  -0.8 DEGREES

JULY   MONTHLY AVG. TEMP       65.3 DEGREES  -4.8 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MAX TEMP   75.1 DEGREES  -5.0 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MIN TEMP   55.5 DEGREES  -4.6 DEGREES

SUMMER
SO FAR MONTHLY AVG. TEMP       65.6 DEGREES  -2.5 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MAX TEMP   75.2 DEGREES  -3.1 DEGREES
       MONTHLY AVG. MIN TEMP   56.0 DEGREES  -1.9 DEGREES

Posted under climate

We’ve been chatting at great length both on the air and here on our blog about the quiet season so far and the lack of severe weather watches and warnings in our local area.  Here’s the latest statement from the National Weather Service regarding the delayed onset of tornado season here in Minnesota:

Late Start This Year for Minnesota Tornadoes

Posted under Uncategorized, climate, minnesota, severe weather

To be entirely honest, I totally just forgot what I was going to write here. In the meantime, enjoy the Rochester climate summary for April 2009.

Seriously, I have no idea what I was going to say…

Posted under KTTC, climate

Hope you had a good Easter weekend! Here’s some Fun Easter Climate  from the NWS in La Crosse.

The winner has been announced for the Bad Easter Joke Contest. Well, there was only one contestant, but I still got a laugh out of the entries!!

Posted under KTTC

A viewer called this morning asking about this week’s “Ember Days” and what our forecast was for the next season based on these.  Well, unfortunately, I had not heard of these, but from what he said it sounded like an example of some of that crazy old weather lore where people (or groundhogs) predict the weather based on the present state of the atmosphere on a given day or on coincidences in the surrounding landscape.  There are good examples and some bad examples.  Some of those bad (false) adages include: when March blows its horn, your barn will be filled with hay and corn; when March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb (or vice versa); and dogs and cats eat grass before the rain.  Anyway, I looked it up on the ”Old Farmer’s Almanac” and there is such a weather term and apparently it’s been around for quite sometime.  Basically in the four seasons of the year, there are instances where one can foresee the weather of the following three months based on what happens on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of four particular weeks.  These weeks are determined based on the Roman Catholic or Anglican (Episcopal in the U.S.) church calendars.  The link is below with a full explanation, but this week’s Ember Days are coming up on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday because the first Sunday of Lent was yesterday.  These days will predict the weather for April, May, and June.  Make of it what you will, but I’m not even entirely sure how to use this forecast to derive the coming months’ weather other than to say it does look like things will be slightly warmer than average.  Well, I feel like I’ve learned something important today, but I still can’t help but also feel somewhat ashamed that I, an Episcopalian meteorologist, didn’t know about Ember Days until that viewer’s call this morning.  Now I’ll probably have to give something up for Lent to make up for this!   ;)

“Ember Days“ from the “Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Posted under Farming, climate, history

Thanks to a quick shot of warm air ahead of a cold front in the past 24 hours, we finally enjoyed our first 20 degree temperatures of the week earlier today (hopefully you didn’t miss it.)  That short-lived warm spell happened last night as temperatures quickly rose in the evening, eventually reaching into the 20s in most spots locally before this morning’s cold front ushered in another arctic blast and even produced some light snow showers before sunrise.  Here are some of the predawn temperatures recorded in our local area (before the cold front):

 CURRENT HOURLY OBSERVATIONS ACROSS
MUCH OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LA CROSSE WI
200 AM CST THU JAN 29 2009

…SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA…

CITY                   SKY/WX      TMP    DP     RH    WIND       PRES   REMARKS
ROCHESTER    CLOUDY      25        21     85      W14       29.72R    WCI  13
WINONA         CLOUDY       18        12      79      CALM      29.77R
AUSTIN         FLURRIES     28        27      93      W12       29.74R WCI  18
ALBERT LEA     CLOUDY    27       25      93      W14G23    29.75R FOG     WCI  15
DODGE CENTER   LGT SNOW  25  21      86     W10       29.72R WCI  15
PRESTON        LGT SNOW   25        22       89      W10       29.73R WCI  15
OWATONNA       LGT SNOW  27   23       86       W12       29.72R WCI  16
FARIBAULT      LGT SNOW  25     23       93       W3        29.74R
$$

…ELSEWHERE IN MINNESOTA…

CITY           SKY/WX          TMP     DP       RH      WIND       PRES   REMARKS
MINNEAPOLIS    CLOUDY   18  14        84        CALM      29.74R    FOG
INTNL FALLS    NOT AVBL
DULUTH         FLURRIES  10        6          84        NW7       29.65R     WCI  -1
RED WING       CLOUDY    14     10           85       CALM      29.74R    FOG
REDWOOD FALLS  CLOUDY    21  14      74       NW15G23   29.82R WCI   8
MANKATO        CLOUDY    27  25             93        NW20G28   29.76R WCI  13
WORTHINGTON    NOT AVBL
FAIRMONT       CLOUDY    27  21            80         NW23      29.82R     WCI  12
$$

From the looks of things, we’ll be getting another decent shot of warm air just in time for the last day of the month on Saturday, giving us one final chance to reach 30 degrees for the first time this month in Rochester.  If we fall short of the freezing mark Saturday, it’ll be just the first time that has happened since 1979, so we’ll have to watch that situation closely.

Speaking of a cold winter, I found this link from the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids, Michigan that shows the ice on Lake Michigan and the surrounding shoreline.  Enoy the cool pictures and interesting article!

NWS Grand Rapids, MI article: Will Lake Michigan Freeze Over?

Posted under Uncategorized

As of Sunday morning’s snow tallies, this December is now the 3rd snowiest in Rochester’s recorded weather history with 24.9″ on the month so far.  December 2000 ranks 1st with 35.3″, and 1969 is 2nd with 30.6″.  Will Tuesday’s snowfall push us into 2nd?  Hmmm…

This is also the 3rd snowiest start to a winter season in Rochester with 29.4″ on the season so far (measured from July-June so as not to miss any renegade snowfall events in the records).  1985 and 1991 are 1st and  2nd with 34.4″ and 32.1″ consecutively.

More snow is on the way, in a couple rounds, from Monday night through Tuesday, then again Wednesday morning…

Posted under KTTC, Rochester, weather, winter weather