It has been a long time since we have talked about something being above average other than the temperature.  The February of 2013 is changing that though.  Through February so far we have had 15″ of snow fall at the Rochester International Airport.  That was jump started by day after day after day of Clippers to start the month and then recently with the biggest snowstorm we have had in the last two winters.  Climatologically speaking,  February is the least snowy of the snowy months, but during the Winter of 12/13 it has been the snowiest.  Not only has it been the snowiest this Winter, we have actually cracked the top 10 snowiest for the month of February.  Here’s the list of five through ten.

In the coming days we will have a chance to climb up this list a little higher.  We are watching a large system that will feature the heaviest snow staying well to the south and east of our area, but come Tuesday and Wednesday, we will have a chance to be scraped by this system.

This is how the storm will look on Monday evening.  This system will likely bring a full blown Blizzard to parts of the plain states.  The track again will stay away from us, most likely putting Chicago in the bulls eye after slamming portions of Kansas and Missouri with over a foot of snow.  Our chances will be Tuesday and Wednesday and the intensity will be MUCH lighter.  With that said, a jog in the track northward would change things drastically so we are still monitoring the track of this one.

February has definitely brought active weather back to Minnesota.  Hopefully this stretch will continue to help replenish area streams and rivers.  The recent liquid will help somewhat to do that, but we need this active weather to continue into spring to help put a dent in the drought since the ground is still frozen.  Fingers crossed, but definitely a positive sign going forward!

Posted under climate, Drought, history, minnesota, Records, weather, winter, winter weather

A cold front has swept through the Upper Mississippi Valley today, ushering in some cool, Canadian air and producing some light rain showers and gusty winds for us.  Unfortunately, as we’ve seen so many times this year, rainfall amounts have been sparse with this rain event locally with less than a tenth of an inch being registered in most locations.  As we look ahead to the weekend and next week, rain chances look meager with sunshine and seasonably mild weather expected instead.  We learned earlier this week that most of our viewing area has either entered the US Drought Monitor’s outlook or moved up a category in that outlook because of our current spell of appreciable rainfall. 

Extreme Drought conditions keep expanding across the Midwest with many locations now entering the Drought Monitor Outlook as "abnormally dry."

Moderate to Extreme Drought conditions continue to linger in much of Minnesota. Rochester and a large part of southeastern Minnesota are now in the "abnormally dry" category.

Drought conditions in Iowa remain dire as much of the state is still in Extreme Drought or worse.

Mason City's rainfall deficit is approaching a foot for the year.

Rochester's rainfall deficit for the year is approaching five inches.

Posted under Uncategorized

The latest drought monitor has been released and although we’ve received some nice, soaking showers in the past couple of days, very little has changed in the local drought headlines.  Much of north Iowa remains in the Severe Drought category of the drought monitor suggesting that crop loss may be inevitable for a large part of the local area and that only the longest period of wet weather would bring relief from the dryness.  Meanwhile, on the Minnesota side of the border there are some spots in Severe Drought while a large area is fortunate enough to be only slightly dry and not even listed in a drought monitor category.  For instance, Rochester is not officially in a drought category, but there is a rainfall deficit of more than two and a half inches and given a week or two of persistent dryness, we could slip into the Abnormally Dry category or some form of drought category so we’re still hoping for rain to keep things green and healthy.  The rainfall forecast is looking somewhat favorable for the area as we head into the weekend because a storm system is going to bring scattered showers and thunderstorms tonight and through a large portion of tomorrow with a quarter to possibly half an inch of rainfall possible.  That wouldn’t be a drought “buster,” but it would be a start.  Beyond that, we’ll have cooler weather for a couple of days before smaller rain chances slowly creep back into the forecast later next week.

The majority of our area remains dry while the driest conditions are well to the south in the region.

The southern tier of counties in Minnesota and southwestern part of the state is the driest while the rest is only slightly drier than normal.

The entire state of Iowa continues to suffer through our summer long drought with some locations as much as eight inches below normal for the year in rainfall.

Posted under Drought

Even after a stormy Monday night and Tuesday morning in much of the local area, we still find ourselves in a pretty sizable rainfall deficit for the month and season across the region.  While Rochester officially measured 1.80″ of fresh rainfall in that heavy line of showers Tuesday, we still have a slight deficit and could use some more.  The southwestern half of the local area completely missed out on those showers and in some cases the deficit is significant, something along the lines of four to eight inches below normal for the year, especially in northern Iowa where crops are suffering and an extreme drought continues.

Rochester closed the seasonal deficit to less than two inches for summer 2012, and less than an inch for July.

The official rainfall deficit for the month in Rochester today is 0.42″ while we’re 1.34″ below normal for the year and 1.85″ below normal for summer (since June 1st.)  Mason City, meanwhile, has a rainfall deficit for the season of 5.94″ and 7.03″ for the entire year.  They’ve measured a mere 0.14″ of rain in the entire month of July!

We’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for some rain in the area, especially for those locations in northern Iowa that are in danger of losing their crops and there appear to be two decent chances in the next couple of days.  The first opportunity for rain will be along and even just behind a cold front that is approaching from the west today.  There will be chances for thunderstorms later this afternoon and evening with that front, but probably not enough to make a huge dent in that enormous deficit, unfortunately.  Temperatures ahead of that front will be in the low to mid 90s in Minnesota and in the upper 90s in northern Iowa today with heat indices in the triple digits for much of the area, but things will cool significantly behind the front for tomorrow and the upcoming weekend.  Another, weaker, disturbance tomorrow evening will bring a few light showers and thunderstorms to the local area.  After this, we’ll likely have to wait for light rain late in the weekend and early next week.

In the meantime, there is a chance for some strong to severe thunderstorms today with the arrival of that cold front in the region.

Large hail and damaging wind gusts will be possible in the thunderstorms that are expected to develop today and tonight along an approaching cold front.

Posted under climate, Drought

The latest Drought Monitor update from the USDA shows little change in our area over the past week.  Most of our southern Minnesota and Wisconsin counties are rather dry and are listed as “abnormally dry” or in the “moderate drought” category and are anywhere from two to four inches below normal for rainfall this summer, not including the much needed rain we received on Wednesday.  Meanwhile the northern Iowa portion of our local area is in much worse shape, listed as being in “severe drought” and is a couple of months behind in rainfall.  Again, that’s not including yesterday’s showers and thunderstorms that brought anywhere from a few tenths of an inch to a couple of inches of rain to that area.  Right now we’re hoping for a nice, long duration rain event that would replenish soil moisture somewhere in the an inch or two category across the entire area, but such a storm system doesn’t appear to be in sight.  We’ll just have to hope for more of those scattered shower situations like the one we experienced yesterday where a little downpour here and there helps one town or field at a time.  The forecast for the weekend does feature some rain chances, but really light activity is expected with the Minnesota side of the border expecting slightly higher amounts.  There will be a few chances next week as well and toward the middle of the week, a stronger cold front appears poised to produce more widespread rain and possibly knock down the temperatures just a bit, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that things work our in our favor in this forecast scenario.  Rochester, for instance, is an inch and a half below normal for the month and almost three inches below normal for the year.  that’s not including the eight to nine inches our area was below normal for last fall when we experienced such an incredibly dry stretch of weeks and months.

The southernmost portion of our Minnesota viewing area is in moderate drought while Rochester and locations to the west are listed as abnormally dry.

Northern Iowa continues to deal with severe drought conditions as some locations are a couple of months' worth of rain below normal.

Some spots to our south and southeast are even drier than we are as extreme drought conditions are becoming more common in the Midwest.

Posted under Drought

We’re enjoying a bright, fairly dry Thursday with some seasonably warm weather across the area while hopes for some rain persist.  A weak storm system in the Dakotas is edging its way eastward, offering us at least the potential for a little relief from these very dry conditions.  Cloud cover will slowly increase today ahead of that storm system and its cold front with some light rain possibly developing as soon as the wee hours of Friday for us.  While there will be a chance for light rain through much of tomorrow and tomorrow night, possibly through early Saturday, rainfall totals do NOT look promising.  I know “every little bit helps,” right?  Well, right now I’m just hoping we all get at least a measurable amount of rain from this as the showers will battle some dry air initially and the front isn’t looking tremendously strong.  After this, there won’t be any decent rain chances until the middle of latter parts of next week, so there’s a lot of pressure on this storm system to deliver something useful.  Right now our rainfall deficit for the month is officially two and a half inches and more than four inches for the past month overall with some spots to the south drier than that.

The latest Drought Monitor has been released by the USDA and parts of our area are now back into “Abnormally Dry” or “Moderate Drought” categories.

Drought conditions are developing across southern and western Minnesota where rain has been sparse over the past month.

Moderate drought conditions are being experienced across northern Iowa while Severe Drought is just south of us.

The local rainfall forecast for Friday through Saturday morning. Totals look to be on the low side, but hopefully we'll get at least this much as atmospheric dryness may reduce amounts some.

Much of our area is in the Slight Risk of severe weather in the Storm Prediction Center's Friday outlook. Strong to severe thunderstorms will be possible in our area late Friday through Friday night along an approaching cold front. Large hail and strong winds will be possible.

Posted under Drought, rainfall, severe weather

When it rains, it pours.  That has been the case this spring and summer for sure.  It hasn’t rained for very many days but when it did we were able to pick up a good amount of liquid.  Over the past few months though there has not been any consistency.  As a matter of fact, if you recall the heavy rain events in Goodhue and Rice counties in mid June, most of us, at least north of I-90 saw well over an inch of rain.  Now of course in those two counties anywhere from 10-14 inches of rain fell.  As hard as it is to believe, alot of folks got snubbed of rainfall that night.  That is really the last time measurable rain fell across most of the area.  In fact, at the Rochester International Airport, measurable rain has not been recorded since all the way back on June 20th.  There were a few days that recorded a trace, but that means nothing.  Mother nature also picked a horrible time to stop sending us the moisture as everything in the ground desperately needs rain and over the last 20 days (more in some places) we just haven’t had any.  Even though we don’t have official numbers like this everywhere due to the lack of official recording stations, it has been dry everywhere.  Here is a breakdown of where Rochester stands.  It only shows us being 2″ inches in the deficit, but remember May started off extremely wet, and then the brakes were put on in June so to speak.

Rain break down to date (7/9/12) (RST)

In the near term unfortunately there is no relief in sight for those needing rain.  There is a slight chance this weekend, but I would not bet on this chance at all.  I am being extremely optimistic in even adding it into the seven day forecast so keep your fingers crossed.  The water bill will no doubt take a hit if you want a green lawn or are trying to save your garden and you will have to keep watering in order to do that.  More importantly for our farmers, rain can’t come soon enough.

Posted under climate, Drought, rainfall, Uncategorized

Our weather certainly has gotten much more pleasant in the past couple of days and from the looks of the current seven day forecast, we’re going to be doing pretty well for the next week or so for the most part.  This is just what the doctor ordered considering before yesterday, we’d had rainfall in all but one day this month, accumulating more than two inches of rainfall in the first eight days of May.  The good news is we made the most of that unsettled and stormy stretch of weather in the past couple of weeks as the entire region moved up a category in the regional NWS Drought Monitor’s weekly outlook.  Areas in southern and southeastern Minnesota that were in “Severe Drought” dating back to August, when things were becoming especially dry, have moved up to “Moderate Drought” and some spots have moved up from drought conditions to just “Abnormally Dry”.

National Weather Service Drought Page: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/?n=drought

Much improvement has been made in the drought situation over the past couple of weeks. Severe Drought areas have moved up to Moderate Drought.

Posted under Drought

Over the last week, pretty much every day someone was seeing some type of severe weather.  With that severe weather came a lot of beneficial rain.  Every day so far (Through the first 6 days) we have seen at least a trace of rain, with 4 of those 6 days being above .25 inches. (Amounts coming from the Rochester International Airport.)

Below is graphic of the state of Minnesota showing the clear deficit  in SE MN from last August til the end of April.  Even with the wet second half of April, we were just about 8 or so inches in the hole, but after a crazy wet start to May, things will be a bit better by the next issuance of this graphic by the DNR.

Heavy thunderstorms once again rolled through area late Saturday night into early Sunday morning and produced more heavy rain.  Below are some of the totals from the last 24 hours. (There are errors at both the Austin ans Albert Lea reporting sites.  Both sites picked up around .30 inches of rain)

Here is the breakdown heading into last summer.  The graphic shows it all and it is clear that tables are turning in a positive manner.  Through the last seven and a half months we have picked up only 8.8 inches of rain.  Over the last 24 days, we have picked up over half of what we got in about the last 8 months combined.

Rainfall Comparison

Posted under climate, history, minnesota, rainfall, rainfall amounts, spring, weather

As we discussed earlier this week, the majority of our area is still in either moderate or severe drought categories of the National Drought Monitor thanks to a long stretch of abnormally drier than normal months in the region.  We’ve been below average for rainfall in nine of the past ten months going back to the beginning of July last year.  Of course, this includes that intensely dry, but mild fall and a winter that saw less than half the normal amount of snow in the area.  Things have gotten better to some extent thanks to a couple of very wet days in the past couple of months and in fact since the beginning of 2012 in January, we’re only half an inch below average.  The forecast right now looks to keep us treading water, but not necessarily ending the drought-like conditions with occasional rain, but not very many opportunities for excessive rainfall that would chip away at the deficit over the next few weeks.  Here’s a look at the deficit in graphical form:

Our overall rainfall deficit in Rochester since July 1st, 2011 is roughly 9 inches. That's more than 30% below normal over the past 10 months or so.

Posted under climate