Friday, July 15, 2011
File Under: Things That Don't Seem Logical
Here is a depiction of the latest heat watches and warnings. The red-shaded areas represent Excessive Heat Warnings; the lighter-colored shading represents Excessive Heat Watches. It makes some sense that the always-cooking urban core could be under a warning when surrounding areas are under watches. But what makes less sense to us is why there would be a warning for two counties (one in Minnesota, one in Wisconsin) that are midway between the Twin Cities in Duluth. Is the heat really expected to arrive in such an unusual arc pattern? Or is the thinking that the two counties didn't receive much rain today and thus will heat up faster? Hmm.... Professional meteorologists, what can you tell us?
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Those counties are part of the Duluth NWS office. The Chanhassen/Twin Cities office has only issued the warning for the metro (so far).
ReplyDeleteNo worries anymore Bill,everyone is now under a heat warning!! This is going to suck,hope you all have AC!!
ReplyDeleteYes, the overnight forecasting shift at MPX upgraded the watch to a warning.
ReplyDelete"DEW POINTS IN THE LOW TO MID 70S COMBINED WITH TEMPERATURES
SOARING INTO THE LOW TO MID 90S HAS PROMPTED UPGRADE FROM HEAT WATCH TO WARNING OVER MOST OF MN AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY. WESTERN TIER OF WEST CENTRAL WI FALLS UNDER HEAT WARNING STARTING EARLY THIS AFTN. HEAT WARNING WILL LIKELY BECOME NECESSARY FOR REMAINDER OF WI COUNTIES BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON. BUILDING OF MASSIVE 50H RIDGE
ACROSS UPPER MIDWEST WILL GUARANTEE HEAT WARNINGS LASTING INTO
WEDNESDAY EVENING."
598 ridge over Kansas. Thats pretty insane. Models showing 595 heights for MSP. Been a while since I've seen that.
ReplyDelete@CWY2190 What's that mean in layman's terms?
ReplyDeleteA large ridge of high pressure will cause the 500mb level of the atmosphere to be at 5980 meters over Kansas which basically higher the number = warmer the air.
ReplyDeleteThats a very strong ridge for that far north. Usually the strong ridges over the deep south will hit 594 (5940 meters).
Tomorrow's forecasted high for the SW metro on weather.com has SOARED to 96-102 this evening. They were saying mid-90s all day. Can we expect similar changes during the late news?
ReplyDeleteThe weather channel is saying 104 with the heat index at 120. I hope not. Interesting to note- nobody said anything about the storms this saturday morning... mis-prediction?
ReplyDelete@CWY2190 Thanks for the explanation.
ReplyDelete@AB and Bemaki Very strange stuff going with weather.com. Wonder what's going on with that.