Earlier today, parts of northeastern Iowa had to deal with a massive deluge of rain from a line of thunderstorms that just didn’t want to move out.  Those storms have since moved along and weakened significantly, but not before dropping huge amounts of rainfall in just a few hours shortly after sunrise.  We have plenty of humidity in the air today ahead of an approaching cold front, so as more thundershowers crop up in the area in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, there will be a chance for a few heavy downpours that may yield an inch or two of rain.  The rain chances will taper off late tonight and then drier, less humid air will flow into the region for tomorrow.  In the meantime, here are some of this morning’s rainfall totals.

Posted under Uncategorized, rainfall amounts

12:15 am: The heaviest of the line is pushing into western Wisconsin, and working through NE Iowa.
Heavy rain with possible flash flooding will be a concern with the rest of the line and the rain behind it. We do have a Flash Flood Watch up through Sunday morning, and several counties are under Flash Flood Warnings.

Earlier:

Severe T-Storm Watch until 3 AM

More severe weather is anticipated today. Here’s the latest details:

What: Severe T-Storm Watch until 3 AM

Where: Our entire viewing area

Why: Line of storms heading into our area from the west. Large hail, damaging winds, and torrential rainfall will be likely will any of the severe storms.

Earlier updates:

Tornado Watch until 8pm

What: Tornado Watch until 8 pm; Flash Flood Watch through Sunday morning

Who: The Tornado Watch stretches from the counties of Rice (MN) straight south to Franklin (IA) and points west.

The Flash Flood Watch is for the entire area.

Why: Warm front near Iowa/Minnesota border; approaching area of low pressure from the west. Daytime heating causing ripe atmosphere for storms to erupt. Also, high dew points will lead to potential for heavy rainfall.

When: Activity is expected later this evening and overnight.

Stay tuned!

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4th and 5th graders at Rochester Montessori School

Today I visited Rochester Montessori School and Mrs. Bredemus’s 4th and 5th grade students who just finished learning about weather. What a bright and curious group, even this last week of school! Thanks for having me!

Posted under KTTC, School Visit, Uncategorized, just cool

The timing wasn’t great, but it was nice to get that light, soaking rain today and the totals were fairly decent.  Some spots in the southern portion of our local area had some heavy downpours and registered close to an inch of rainfall.  We’ll have another chance for some scattered showers and even a few thunderstorms (there should be just enough instability for rumbles of thunder) tomorrow with just a few glimpses at the sun.

Our official deficit for the year now stands at almost three and a half inches.  Look for a tenth to a quarter of an inch in those showers Sunday.

Here’s a look at local rainfall totals from Saturday:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LA CROSSE WI
727 PM CDT SAT JUN 05 2010

…PRELIMINARY 24 HOUR RAINFALL TOTALS THROUGH 7 PM…

LOCATION                   RAINFALL    TIME     LAT/LON

IOWA

…ALLAMAKEE COUNTY…
DORCHESTER HIGHWAY 76      0.69        1900 PM  43.42N 91.51W
ION                        0.50        1900 PM  43.11N 91.27W
HARPERS FERRY              0.45        1900 PM  43.17N 91.24W

…CHICKASAW COUNTY…
IONIA                      0.08        1900 PM  43.03N 92.50W

…CLAYTON COUNTY…
LITTLEPORT                 1.01        1900 PM  42.75N 91.37W
ELKADER                    0.87        1900 PM  42.84N 91.40W
GARBER                     0.70        1900 PM  42.74N 91.26W
MARQUETTE                  0.59        1900 PM  43.04N 91.21W
MCGREGOR                   0.44        1900 PM  43.02N 91.17W

…FAYETTE COUNTY…
OELWEIN AWOS               1.11        1900 PM  42.68N 91.97W
ELDORADO                   0.02        1900 PM  43.05N 91.81W

…FLOYD COUNTY…
CHARLES CITY AWOS          0.12        1900 PM  43.07N 92.61W

…WINNESHIEK COUNTY…
BLUFFTON                   0.96        1900 PM  43.41N 91.90W
DECORAH AWOS               0.79        1900 PM  43.28N 91.74W

MINNESOTA

…DODGE COUNTY…
DODGE CENTER AWOS          0.22        1900 PM  44.03N 92.83W

…FILLMORE COUNTY…
LANESBORO                  0.45        1900 PM  43.72N 91.97W
CARIMONA                   0.42        1900 PM  43.66N 92.15W
PRESTON AWOS               0.34        1900 PM  43.68N 92.18W

…HOUSTON COUNTY…
MOUND PRAIRIE              0.34        1900 PM  43.78N 91.45W

…MOWER COUNTY…
AUSTIN-DOBBINS CREEK       0.41        1900 PM  43.67N 92.95W
AUSTIN AWOS                0.39        1900 PM  43.67N 92.93W
AUSTIN-TURTLE CREEK        0.36        1900 PM  43.67N 92.95W
AUSTIN 3S                  0.32        1900 PM  43.62N 93.00W
LANSING                    0.27        1900 PM  43.75N 92.95W

…OLMSTED COUNTY…
ROCHESTER – CASCADE CREEK  0.35        1900 PM  44.03N 92.48W
ROCHESTER – SILVER CREEK   0.33        1900 PM  44.03N 92.42W
ROCHESTER – BEAR CREEK     0.30        1900 PM  43.92N 92.48W
ROCHESTER BELTLINE         0.29        1900 PM  43.91N 92.50W
ROCHESTER INTL AP          0.27        1900 PM  43.91N 92.50W
ELBA                       0.18        1900 PM  44.05N 92.05W

…WABASHA COUNTY…
KELLOGG                    0.34        1900 PM  44.32N 92.00W
LAKE CITY                  0.16        1900 PM  44.45N 92.26W

…WINONA COUNTY…
DAKOTA                     0.40        1900 PM  43.92N 91.37W
ALTURA                     0.28        1900 PM  44.15N 92.01W
MINNESOTA CITY             0.01        1900 PM  44.16N 91.81W
WINONA AWOS                0.00        1900 PM  44.08N 91.70W

WISCONSIN

…BUFFALO COUNTY…
MONDOVI                    0.18        1900 PM  44.56N 91.67W

…CRAWFORD COUNTY…
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN AWOS      0.48        1900 PM  43.30N 89.76W
STEUBEN                    0.33        1900 PM  43.18N 90.87W

…GRANT COUNTY…
BOSCOBEL ASOS              0.32        1900 PM  43.16N 90.68W
BOSCOBEL RAWS              0.26        1900 PM  43.15N 90.68W

…JACKSON COUNTY…
BLACK RIVER FALLS          0.50        1900 PM  44.38N 90.84W

…JUNEAU COUNTY…
NECEDAH 5WNW               0.44        1900 PM  44.06N 90.17W
NECEDAH 1W                 0.41        1900 PM  44.02N 90.08W
CAMP DOUGLAS               0.35        1900 PM  43.94N 90.26W

…LA CROSSE COUNTY…
HOLMEN 1NW                 0.52        1900 PM  43.97N 91.27W
LA CROSSE-MISSISSIPPI RVR  0.47        1900 PM  43.80N 91.37W
LA CROSSE WEATHER OFFICE   0.42        1900 PM  43.82N 91.19W
LA CROSSE ASOS             0.26        1900 PM  43.88N 91.26W

…MONROE COUNTY…
SPARTA AWOS                0.27        1900 PM  43.96N 90.74W

…TAYLOR COUNTY…
LUBLIN DIAMOND LAKE        0.27        1900 PM  45.11N 90.69W

…VERNON COUNTY…
COON VALLEY 6S             0.35        1900 PM  43.61N 91.01W
VIROQUA 4WSW               0.35        1900 PM  43.54N 90.96W
WESTBY 2NNE                0.31        1900 PM  43.70N 90.85W
VIROQUA 3ESE               0.31        1900 PM  43.55N 90.82W
VIROQUA 4NE                0.31        1900 PM  43.61N 90.82W
WESTBY 3SE                 0.24        1900 PM  43.62N 90.82W

Posted under Uncategorized, climate, rainfall amounts

Today marks the beginning of not only June, but also meteorological summer and it looks like we’re going to be diving head first into the new season with summer-like temperatures and some thunderstorm chances, a couple of elements in a quintessential summer day it seems.  Warm air is flowing into the region ahead of a storm system that is sliding in from the west today, setting the table for those thunderstorm chances.  We’ll have just enough moisture and instability in the atmosphere to go along with the appropriate wind shear aloft to produce some strong storms later in the day.  Right now, the best chances for severe weather locally appears to be after 4:00 this afternoon through sunset this evening.  Large hail, damaging winds, and locally heavy rainfall will be possible with these storms and there may be just the right dynamics to produce a tornado or two during the early evening.  The silver lining here is that we really could use the rain (my lawn is really looking brown these days) and some of these storms may end up producing an inch or two of rainfall. 

Track Storms with our Precision Storm Tracker at KTTC.com and follow along on Facebook, Twitter, and on the air at Noon, 5, 6, and 10 o’clock.

The Storm Prediction Center's severe weather outlook for today

Posted under Uncategorized, severe weather

We’ll keep it simple. Sunny, warm, less humid, light winds.

Today’s rainfall didn’t amount to much, but it was something, and should green things up a little for a couple days. The good news is that our pattern is looking better for rain chances this week. We could get a good soaker Tuesday night into Wednesday morning followed by another round of thunderstorms late in the week.

Have a fun and safe Memorial Day!

Posted under Uncategorized

The thunderstorm in Olmsted county this afternoon affected those east of Broadway in Rochester. Over 3″ of rainfall was reported near Eastwood Golf Course, and 2.68″ of rainfall was reported on 20th St. SE in Rochester. All that rain fell over the course of about an hour and a half!

This storm…

Produced this!

…and a whole lot of rain in parts of east Rochester to Chester, then north to Elgin…

Posted under Uncategorized

The temperature made it to 94° at the Rochester airport this afternoon, breaking the old record of 88° set back in 1912. It will be unseasonably warm again Tuesday, but highs will likely remain in the upper 80s due to more cloud cover and the expected development of thunderstorms.

The chance of severe weather is rather low Tuesday, but we’ll be keeping an eye on things…

Posted under Uncategorized

Here are Sunday through Tuesday’s forecast highs (as of Friday evening, 5/21) and record highs, respectively.

Sunday: Forecast, 89; Record, 89, 1972

Monday: Forecast, 90; Record, 88, 1912

Tuesday: Forecast, 89; Record, 89, 1980

Along with this unseasonable warmth will come very high humidities. Dew points will be headed toward 70° Sunday and remaining high into next week.

Stay cool.

Posted under Uncategorized

Pending the morning fog burns off in short order, we’re in for a bright Wednesday. I’m not one to encourage anyone to play hooky, but Wednesday’s going to be the nicest day for at least the next 7 and likely longer. Colder, Arctic air is set to plunge into the region this weekend, and as we’re inching closer to the weekend, snow is looking more and more likely. However, just where that snow falls is the bigger question. Right now, it’s still looking most likely in northeast Iowa to southwest Wisconsin and not so much around Rochester. As model data continues to evolve and help develop a clearer picture, we’ll have updates as we near the weekend. Stay tuned…

Posted under Uncategorized