Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Will Wednesday Provide the Century Icing to the Heat Wave Cake?

Tuesday's 119 heat index
OK, "icing" may not be the right word, but you get the drift. Will Wednesday delivery the coup de grâce for this record-setting heat wave? The majority of local forecasters are predicting that Wednesday will indeed be the hottest of the current heat wave. (The national forecasters, not so much.) As of late afternoon on Tuesday, here's how the weathercasters saw Wednesday:

WCCO: 100
KSTP: 100
FOX: 97
KARE: 100
NWS: 97
Weather Channel: 96
Accuweather: 96
Intellicast: 95
Star Tribune: 99
Posted by at

10 comments:

  1. randyinchamplinJuly 19, 2011 at 5:55 PM

    look at the previous thread I'm calling for 96 on Wednesday

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  2. CWY2190July 19, 2011 at 6:53 PM

    Assuming quality control, Moorhead just shattered the state record with a heat index of 134 (95/88).

    Is that airport in the middle of a cornfield?

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  3. BillJuly 19, 2011 at 6:55 PM

    I wonder how reliable the readings (or positioning of the instruments) are at locations less official than international airports. Does the NWS grade the quality of weather reading set ups or otherwise provide some sort of quality control?

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  4. CWY2190July 19, 2011 at 7:17 PM

    I wouldn't be surprised if NWS Grand Forks checks out the instrument. A dew point of 88 is almost impossible to get outside a micro scale location.

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  5. rJuly 19, 2011 at 7:32 PM

    ok according to MPX the record keeper for dews is the MN Climate Office...I hope they can get out and check the gauges soon....

    THE MINNESOTA STATE CLIMATOLOGY OFFICE IS THE OFFICIAL SOURCE OF
    DEW POINT RECORDS ACROSS THE STATE. THIS NEW RECORD WILL BE
    CONSIDERED UNOFFICIAL UNTIL IT IS CONFIRMED BY THE STAFF AT THE
    STATE CLIMATE OFFICE.

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  6. BillJuly 19, 2011 at 7:49 PM

    There also seems to be some question as to whether the 119 heat index was tied. Several forecasters tweeted the 119 but Paul Douglas's blog says only 118 was confirmed. Wonder how that whole record keeping/record confirmation process goes.

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  7. DennisJuly 19, 2011 at 10:07 PM

    http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=arx&storyid=70928&source=0

    Some of the heat indices reported from around the area...

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  8. Nick BensonJuly 19, 2011 at 10:50 PM

    @Bill - I worked on a project that used geographic information systems to perform surface weather observation site suitability analysis (make a map of where it'd be acceptable to place a weather station) when I was in college, and the requirements are fairly straight forward; in short, you want a location thats in the middle of field without any sort of topographic features (trees, buildings, hills, etc.) that impede the wind. As it turns out, airports almost always meet all of these criteria, and most of the surface weather observations we rely on in this state come from airports.

    I'm not sure how much of a role, if any, the NWS plays in the siting or maintenance of the weather observation network in this state; in Oklahoma, where I went to college, there was a state agency that managed all of that; I suspect it's mostly a mix of the FAA/NWS up here.

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  9. BillJuly 19, 2011 at 11:27 PM

    Thanks for the great input, Nick. Incorporated your heat index explanation in the most recent post.

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  10. AnonymousJuly 20, 2011 at 7:26 AM

    Why are heat indexes taken at airports? We don't live on airports, we live in cities where things are hotter. If we want to judge conditions for the way they affect us, you judge the conditions with how we live in them. Of course it is easiest to eliminate external variables affecting the weather readings at an airport, but since buildings, pavement, etc in cities have a significant affect on weather conditions, this should be taken into account. The whole point of a heat index is to tell us what it FEELS like outside. Again, difficult to do in practice, but how heat is actually affecting us it isn't just academic.

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