Thursday, January 21, 2010

Forecast has changed...

Forecast still remains a tricky one for this upcoming weekend.....However starting to come together...Details below after we talk about today through Friday...


This morning SFC OBS we see temps in the single digits up North Ashland is reporting a temp of +6° middle to lower teens are found elsewhere's in the Northern part of the FA....Lower to middle 20s are to be had in my Central and Southern FA....While SFC OBS are not indicating any precip radar is showing a few areas of light FRZG RA / sleet,with some light snow across Southwestern Barron County,along with parts of Dunn County a small area of mixed precip ready to move out of Northwestern part of ST.Croix County...Mixed precip is moving Northwest...Looking upstream ATTM I do see much of any thing else....However that may be changing as we head through the day....

***TODAY THROUGH TONIGHT***

High pressure centered over Just North of MI in Canada will keep a dry flow going for my Northern areas,So should just see mainly CLDY skies up in them areas....Rest of my FA remains under some what of a moist Southerly flow with a low pressure system well to our South...Have decided to keep a chance of light mix precip going for my Central and Southern areas today and tonight..Highs today should be in the upper 20s to the lower 30s Lows tonight should fall back into the middle teens to lower 20s.....

***FRIDAY***

Not really much to talk about...Will keep clouds locked in place for the most part...Could see some breaks in the clouds in my Northern FA...Highs in the lower 30s appears to work just fine....

***FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY***

This time frame is proving to be a tricky one...Things have changed once again for my FA.....1 problem is timing and placement of the storm system....Models have trended to slow this thing down...ECMWF has this system more Northwest than last night...So lets talk about the ECMWF model....We see a 984 MB low pressure over Northeast CO...This low is FCSTD to lift North/Northeast towards Southern ND by Sat night/Sunday...From there the low is FCSTD to move into Far Northern WI...This track would keep my FA in the warm sector until about Sunday late afternoon...So here is were the forecast gets tricky...Thermal profiles still showing a FRZG RA for Fri night into early Sat morning....Then temps aloft warm enough to produce just rain in the afternoon....SFC temps climb to the middle 30s also,so any FRZG RA that does fall should melt off rather quickly Sat....Sat night with temps still warm at the SFC and aloft Am going to keep rain ongoing and remove the FRZG RA from the forecast....On Sunday still going to keep old fashion rain going,then I will slowly change it to a mix of rain and snow in the afternoon,seems to be the best way to play this one out for now as thermal profiles start to cool aloft...SFC temps will still be in the middle 30s....Sunday night will change rain/rain snow mixture to all snow ...Will keep that going through Monday....ATTM does not appear to be any thing to big..Still may see some accumulations....
OK lets talk about the GFS model....GFS keep the storm system more to the South....Track the low from Eastern CO into Southern NE then up into Northern IA/Southern MN then through the Central to Northeastern WI....With this track one would think big time snows...However thermal profiles of the GFS would suggest otherwise....For the most part I see GFS agreeing with ECMWF as far as precip goes...Just looked at the 06Z run off the GFS...Now this has better come in line with ECMWF model...Still a little South,nevertheless nothing to change my mind.....So thinking above will stand....One thing all models show is a cool down after this system pushes out of the area....Temps fall back to more normal like...Wednesday/Thursday time frame models still showing an Arctic cold front pushing into the area...So if this pans out we could be back into the deep freeze once again....

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

looks like a big mess for the weekend...One word to sum it up = crappy

Forecast problems...All kinds to deal with and try to work out before the weekend...


First off the possibilities of and ice storm,second possibility of heavy snow....So lets see what we can do with the newest info I have in front of me as of now....

First off the ice storm that is effecting IA and far Southern MN and Southeast MN into Southwest and Southern WI...Looking at the RUC model we find a low pressure system moving into Northwest MO...This has drawn in plenty of GOM moisture,also has drawn in warmer temps aloft,while SFC temps have been in the upper 20s to lower 30s through out said areas...This has caused problem with FRZG RA....Models do keep this system to our South...So the likely hood of the that playing out this far North is slim to none...However the FA should see some snow/sleet/and FRZG RA through out tomorrow and Thursday night...This may cause a few travel problems....We get a break on Friday with PTLY CLDY skies and temps right around the 30 degree mark....

Now on to the main system of interest....

First off we start with the ECMWF model....We see a 985 MB low pressure taking shape out over Northeast CO....This low is forecasted to lift into Northern SD..Then move across WI into the UPI of MI by time it reach this point the low should be right around 992 MBS.......Now with the track of this low as of now this would allow for warmer temps at the SFC and aloft...So here is were things get tricky.....During the daytime hrs on Sat we could see just a period of rain...During the night time hrs of Friday and Sat we should see more FRZG RA and sleet...thermal profiles show this rather well on this model,and GFS model....Sat night as the low starts to pull away we shall see any mixed precip change over to all snow,the snow should last right through much of the day Monday...Now the big question is were will the heavy snow band set up? looks like the deformation axis should set up to our west/Northwest over in MN...Still over here in WI we could see some snow accumulations...Thinking is right now is to run with forecast package, though ECMWF is more North with this system than GFS,however GFS has warmer air also pulling into the area...So all in all models do agree on one big mess....So I see no reason to think any different ATTM...Will see what happens in later runs and update the forecast as needed...Looks like there could be some significant ice accumulations close to my FA if not my FA....This system will need to watch...

Cooler temps will follow this system...Models are hinting at an Arctic cold front slamming into the area about Wednesday...So the long party of warm winter temps appears to becoming to an end the middle part of next week...So party on until then!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Hoar frost








Foggy conditions most of the past week has lead to hoar frost along with ice fog,or aka freezing fog...Saturday we saw sunshine....This made for some great photo opps....Enjoy..Cick on the pictures to see full size.....

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Pictures from yesterday






Here is how my day was spent....Taking pictures and video of a truck being pulled out of an area lake...

Friday, January 8, 2010

2009 thunderstorm days

Lets talk about 2009 severe thunderstorms or the lack of severe thunderstorms.Also will be talking about non severe thunderstorms...So lets break this down month by month shall we...Ok we shall.


Jan...We had no thunderstorm activity...

Feb....We saw our first thunderstorm on the 9th,then on the 26 we had another thunderstorm day,which we here at The Weather Center had thundersnow....So Feb we had two thunderstorm days...
Zero severe thunderstorm days were recorded...

Mar.... We had a thunderstorm at or around the 11 pm hour on the 23rd...More thunderstorms moved through the area on the 24 after the midnight hour...So in Mar we also had two thunderstorm days...

Some have asked this question many times...How do we record a thunderstorm day,what are the times valid from...Well any day one can here thunder,that is a thunderstorm day....Also we run from 12 AM to 11:59 PM so anytime that a thunder happens during that time frame that day would be considered a thunderstorm day....So lets say we get a thunderstorm at 11:45 pm on the 25,so that day would be considered a thunderstorm day...Ok then lets say the storm keeps going through 12:03 AM on the 26...So yeah the 26 would also be considered a thunderstorm day....
Zero severe thunderstorm days were recorded....

April....We had a thunderstorm on the 24 this was a non severe thunderstorm,however it did produce some small pea size hail...Sure was a nice B.day gift....We also had a thunderstorm on the 26...Two thunderstorm days...
Zero severe thunderstorms...

May...We had 3 thunderstorm days...one was on the 5 this storm was severe at it moved through Barron,Polk,St.Croix,and Dunn Counties.....This thing produced 0.75 to 1.00 inch hail...See this post http://dirksforecastingcenter.blogspot.com/2009/05/050509-chase-log.html

See this post for pictures..
http://dirksforecastingcenter.blogspot.com/2009/05/chase-pictures.html
We also saw thunderstorms on the 29 and again on the 31
One severe thunderstorm day...

June....We had 6 thunderstorm days....Days that saw thunderstorm were as follows....17,18,21,22,25,and the 27...
Zero severe thunderstorm days...

July...We had 7 thunderstorm days....Days we had thunderstorms..4,9,10,21,24,25,and the 30....
No severe thunderstorms were recorded...

Aug....We had 10 thunderstorm days....Here they are...2,3,4,8,14,15,16,19,25,28.......
We had 2 severe thunderstorm days one on the 8 and on the 19..See link below for the 8th....
http://dirksforecastingcenter.blogspot.com/2009/08/burkhardt-storm-damage-pictures.html
on the 19 we had some small tornadoes...I really don't like to call them that as they were short lived...I like to call them spin ups....No damage that I saw....

Sept...We had 2 thunderstorm days....11,and then on the 27
Zero severe thunderstorm days...

Oct....No thunderstorm days were recorded...

Nov...No thunderstorm days were recorded....

Dec no thunderstorm days were recorded...

So the the total thunderstorm days for the year 2009 stands at....34.....

Dec Recap

Yeah I'm a little late on this,however here it is..


We had 6 days of snowfall greater than 1/4"....Total snowfall amount for Dec comes in at 26.50"....Add that to the 2" that fell in Nov..That brings us up to 28.50"..Lets add the snowfall anounts we got back in Oct shall we..That would  = 37.75" of snow so far this 09/10 winter....So far this winter has temps well below normal...Coldest temp so far was -25 below...We have had 4 nights with lows in -20s below...All happen in late Dec and early Jan.....

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The party is over















Back to work tomorrow (WED)...Had a great 6 1/2 days off from work...Today went icefishing here be the pictures...

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Some pictures from tonight









I never thought I would hear myself say this,however -8° sure felt warm tonight...Was a good night to do astro photogragphy...Didn't have to worry about hot spots on the pictures,and the lens never got dew on it...So all in all it was a great evening outside....Now the moon is up won't have to worry about getting anymore astro pictures.....Pictures above is Orion...The ruler of the winter skies....

Lots of things coming later today

I will have a recap to Dec...Also will do a detailed forecast..This will all be later today,as I'm heading over to my Mom's for awhile..

Cold the last few nights and day






Cold has been the word the last few days/nights...However did make for some good photo ops..Not sure what happen to the pictures will try to figure that out later today...on New Years eve temps dropped to -20°...Friday night I had a low of  -22° Last night we hit - 25°..Should be done with the 20s below..However the cold air will with sub zero lows will last through this upcoming week into next weekend