After a March-like week that has featured high temperatures in the 30s and quite a bit of melting snow, it looks like more typical January weather is just hours away.  A potent cold front to our west is expected to sweep through the area after midnight tonight, unleashing some strong, cold west winds that will blow seasonably cold air back into the region.  Ahead of that front today, we’re dealing with the effects of warm weather and melting snow as fog is thick and gray is the color scheme du jour.  We’ll have clouds and highs near 40 degrees for our “Finally Friday” with south winds gradually increasing and working to slowly mix out some of our fog.  While heavy snow will be likely tonight through much of Saturday in the northern plains and far northwestern Minnesota with this storm system and cold front, we’ll get just a few snow showers and flurries along that front and then dry, mainly gray weather for Saturday.  Temperatures this weekend in the wake of that front will be very typical of mid January, beginning a trend of cold weather that looks to linger through most of the rest of the month.

Temperatures look to drop off a cliff late tonight as a strong cold front brings winter weather back to the area.

Posted under Cold, winter weather

Dense Fog Advisory until 6PM Thursday (gray-shaded counties)

A Dense Fog Advisory will be in effect until 6PM Thursday for all of our counties, with the exception of a couple in Wisconsin. As of the noon hour here, it is downright thick in some spots, especially northern Iowa. Not much of a surprise – strong south winds transporting warm air over a thick snowpack – a great recipe for dense fog.

Additionally – with temperatures near and sub-freezing still, look out for some patchy freezing fog, and that wind is also blowing loose snow on the roads. Be careful for slick spots with both of those.

Now, on to the latest on the upcoming storm. Tonight we’ll have fog, freezing drizzle and drizzle possible. Thursday’s forecast still holds for murkiness. Fog, drizzle, rain showers. I’m not worried much about the threat of flooding anymore, specifically because our rain amounts should hold to under 0.25″.

Friday is still tricky and will be our transition day back to cold weather. From what it appears, we’ll go from drizzle and rain showers Friday morning to snow showers in the evening, with an icy transition in between. Our temperatures will drop from near 40° in spots to sub-freezing, and highs on Saturday will linger in the single digits, with a howling northwest wind, cold wind chills, and some flurries. I’m still not expecting much snow locally out of the deal. Happy New Year!

If you’re wondering…Thursday and Saturday look to be the better days for travel.

Forecast for Thursday, December 30th

Forecast for Friday, New Year's Eve

Posted under severe weather, winter, winter weather

There shouldn’t be any surprise to this forecast for tonight: more fog, more fog, more fog, with nearly the whole area once again under a Dense Fog Advisory (thru noon Tuesday).  Be careful driving. There will be icy spots looming on roadways, bridges, etc.

On our minds: a messy/slippery late Wednesday into Thursday with some freezing rain/sleet possible; a larger, stronger storm for the weekend. That one looks to want to start as a cold rain on Saturday, before turning over to a messy mix/snow by Sunday into Monday. No watches or advisories or anything of that nature in regards to those two systems…so with that being said…stay tuned!

Posted under KTTC

We had another round of hoar frost this morning…the fog lingered long enough into the mid-morning that the chance of taking pictures of it lasted into the early afternoon! Enjoy some of the pictures we’ve had sent in. We have others on our Facebook page.

Dense fog will be likely again tonight – there’s a Dense Fog Advisory for all of northern Iowa. Be safe driving. Chances are good you’ll have some more hoar frost to admire tomorrow morning! 

Posted under KTTC

Edit: Dense Fog Advisory for Mason City and points south and west overnight. Everyone else: no advisory, but watch out for areas of thick fog and slippery spots on roads.

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By “normals”, this is the coldest week of the year. Rochester’s average high is 19° and the average low is 3°. Not too shabby to have that replaced with some warmer, well above average readings now, eh?

We just can’t seem to get to 30° here in Rochester. A few reasons why – we have an inversion in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, so as you go up from the surface,  a couple thousand feet or so, the air is warming. We just can’t tap into that warmer air aloft and bring it down to the surface. Snowpack, sun angle, and moisture from the melting snowpack isn’t helping us. Nonetheless, some of us have seen the 30s, and some haven’t, and that’s that.

Speaking of melting snowpack, as our winds drop off tonight, that moisture will help form fog again. Story of our lives these days, right? I think we’ll see a fairly gloomy start to Sunday, but we should be able to catch some peeks of sun by the afternoon hours. There will be a cold front passing through, but we’re really only going to be replacing one mild airmass with another.

Posted under KTTC

Look for fog for the remainder of our afternoon, with some spots seeing some pretty crummy visibilities. There’s the chance for some light freezing drizzle/light flurries the rest of the day and evening too.

Saturday we’ll see a bit more sun and a few flurries; there’s the chance for a quick dusting to an inch of snow on Sunday.

Posted under KTTC

Look for some scattered showers, drizzle, and fog overnight; some scattered showers especially south and west on Thursday.

The better chances for a good, soaking rain come Friday. It’s not looking to be shaping up as the greatest day outside, as pretty much day-long we’ll  have ocassional rain.

Temperatures will be seasonable, but it’ll feel humid the next few days; a stronger storm system late this weekend will shove our temperature down for Monday and even Tuesday.

Posted under KTTC

This picture was taken by and sent to the NewsCenter by Dave Soderberg

We’ll see more of that morning fog this Labor Day weekend, along with sunny, warm afternoons.

Why does river valley fog form?

Posted under Viewer Pics

We talk about it in ever-so-frequent doses this time of the year: here’s all you ever wanted to know about valley fog, and then some. Courtesy of the National Weather Service in La Crosse.

Posted under KTTC

Fog sometimes forms after a good round of hail. The hail doesn’t have to be large, there just has to be a lot of it. Hail will cool down the air immediately above it, bringing the air temperature down to the dew point and causing saturation and in turn, fog. Hail also contributes moisture to the hail as it absorbs heat, melts, and evaporates. On some occasions, hail fog can make for very abrupt and dangerous drops in visibilities on roadways due to the isolated nature of where hail falls.

The following photos were taken near Wabasha by Joe Dick today at 5:30 pm, on County Road 30 from US 61 to upper County 24.

Posted under severe weather