It’s Severe Weather Awareness Week In Minnesota And Wisconsin
SPEAKERS
Jim du Bois, Kenny Blumenfeld
Jim du Bois 00:00
Are you ready to go backwards? This is Way Over Our Heads. It's weather and climate podcast. I'm Jim du Bois, Kenny Blumenfeld's a climatologist. What is the old cliche, two steps forward and three steps back? And we're kind of heading in that backward direction from all the beautiful weather we had that started out last week. And now it's feeling darn right cold out.
Kenny Blumenfeld 00:22
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we kind of didn't have a choice, did we, Jim? I mean, far ahead that we had to go backwards. I think some people are going to be unpleasantly surprised at how far backwards parts of Minnesota are about to go. Yeah, it's a it's definitely a back slide where you will find snow falling in parts of the state, temperatures near to below freezing in parts of the state. I think we all might get a taste at some snowflakes. And then we just kind of will remain a lot chillier than we've been. So, I'm not going to call it cold because it's hard to get cold in April, but it's a lot chillier than it's been so yeah, backwards.
Jim du Bois 01:07
Well, it's probably fair to say we were spoiled a bit. I think our logic our, intellect said it's going to get cold again. It is April, as you said. But you know, you get teased with this stretch of unseasonably warm weather. And you kind of forget about the fact that Minnesota can be very cold in April.
Kenny Blumenfeld 01:24
Ah, yeah...
Jim du Bois 01:26
The weather has deceived us, perhaps.
Kenny Blumenfeld 01:28
Yeah.
Jim du Bois 01:28
Or we've deceived ourselves. I don't know which...
Kenny Blumenfeld 01:30
Maybe, but it's, it's our fault. I mean, we know that if we're 30 or 25 degrees warmer than normal, we know that even returning to normal will feel like a shock. But you must've loved last Monday, when it was 85 degrees in the Twin Cities and it was hard to remember that you can't swim. You can't jump in the lakes.
Jim du Bois 01:55
Right.
Kenny Blumenfeld 01:55
They're deadly cold still at that point, but it was it was just a hot summer day. It's essentially.
Jim du Bois 02:03
Well, it was a beautiful day. And I know that I got outside and enjoyed it. And I hope our listeners did as well. It was a nice respite from not necessarily a particularly tough winter. I guess it's tough, maybe less so from a weather standpoint than it has been from a a societal standpoint on so many different levels. But it was certainly nice to get out and about and then the the upside to of it is our warm streak culminated in some much-needed rains.
Kenny Blumenfeld 02:34
Yeah. What wasn't that something? I mean, you know, at first, it was like this thunder fest, Monday and Tuesday. That was at least in southern Minnesota. It wasn't huge thunderstorms. I mean, the first, actually the first round was pretty rambunctious though, it didn't hit the Twin Cities square, it kind of hit Wright County and north a little bit. But just the frequency of lightning and thunder was kind of something else. A lot of window rattlers. And, you know, we would go multiple thunderstorms in a row for a couple hours. And then you get a little break, and then you get more and none of them really produced severe weather to speak of. There was some a little bit of hail out in Wright County. None of them produced any real damage. It was just vivid lightning, some brief heavy rain, and a lot of lot of thunder. And it was an interesting, interesting set of events. And this just went on for a period of days as rain and thunderstorms kind of rotated around this very slow-moving weather system finally kind of got out of here a little bit over the weekend. And then a second round, a second storm system right on its heels moved in and has been producing rain and snow over northern Minnesota.
Jim du Bois 03:52
And slow moving is kind of the key couple of words, because that allowed the rain to come down not in torrents but in sort of a nice, gentle fashion over many hours and actually over a couple of days as well, which had to be really good for soaking into the soil.
Kenny Blumenfeld 04:11
Yeah, this was one of the most beneficial rains, we could have had. You know, the number of downpours, there weren't that many, it would yeah sure it would rain hard occasionally, but only for a few minutes in most places. And, and a lot of the areas that got what you might consider to be you know, kind of sustained heavy rain really needed it and what we did not observe a lot of was rain just pouring off of surfaces and going right into the streams and rivers and instead just sort of soaking into the ground. You know, a lot of the streams and rivers did bounce a bit and recovered pretty nicely, but this was this was a well-timed, beneficial rain that affected many areas of the state that have been kind of badly in need of precipitation, everything from near the Twin Cities where we've merely been kind of short on precipitation to parts of western and northern Minnesota where there've been some pretty serious deficits. And we've had drought conditions. So yeah, there's a much-needed rain and it cooled things down too.
Jim du Bois 05:18
Well, we should know too, that this is Severe Weather Awareness Week. It officially kicks off today. We're recording on the early afternoon of Monday, April 12. And throughout this week, the National Weather Service will be focusing on particular aspects of severe weather. On Thursday, April 15, weather permitting, as they say, there will be a tornado warning drill a couple of them actually, we'll talk more about that in just a bit. And when I said weather permitting, obviously, if there's the threat of severe weather that day, they will bump the tornado drills to Friday. So, Kenny, what should we be thinking about as we commence Severe Weather Awareness Week?
Kenny Blumenfeld 05:59
I mean, I certainly can't give all of the severe weather advice that we need. But this is the time of year, where you start to remember, you have to remember, it does happen here in Minnesota. It will happen here in Minnesota, and it could even happen in my community. It's just reality. It's not the sky is falling. And it's not that, you know, you have to look out because a tornado is going to hit you this year. It's just every year we have severe weather and tornadoes in Minnesota. And they vary in, you know, number and severity and frequency each year. But you never know what the year is going to hold. And that season generally does begin right around now. And if, I'm sure some of our listeners recall, we actually started our severe weather season already. We had, we had warnings in the Twin Cities area and much of Minnesota on last Monday. And you remember we can also go back to what was it? It was March 9? March 10, yeah. And we had large hail reports and tornado warnings, although there were no tornadoes officially confirmed. And we had tornado watches out also. So, I think a good place to start is knowing the difference between a tornado watch or a severe thunderstorm watch, and a tornado warning or a severe thunderstorm warning. And we can cover that that one right here. The Storm Prediction Center issues these watches, severe thunderstorm or tornado watches over large areas, usually in a window covering anywhere from four to 10 hours. And they do this when the conditions are right for severe thunderstorms and/or tornadoes. And remember, tornadoes come from generally severe thunderstorms, so any tornado watch implies the likelihood or at least possibility of severe thunderstorms as well as the tornadoes. Whereas a severe thunderstorm watch generally implies that the conditions are right for severe thunderstorms, possibly including tornadoes, though, usually the chance for that latter is a little bit lower with those severe thunderstorm watches. So that's kind of the first piece the watch, and it's again, it covers a large area, so it might cover half of Minnesota, or part of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It might even cover almost the whole state, and it would go from you know, 3pm to 10pm, or from 8am to 4pm. It really depends on the conditions and the time of day and where the storms are and what they're expected to do. And it's kind of a blanket; it doesn't mean that you will definitely see severe thunderstorm, it just means that this area in general should be on the lookout for these conditions. When you are in a warning, that means that the type of hazard that is being warned for, either a severe thunderstorm, which would mean winds in excess of 58 miles an hour, or hail or possibly both, or a tornado warning, which would be you know that violent rotating column of air that's in contact with the ground. If you're in a warning for either of those, it means that that particular hazard is near your area and possibly going to affect your area. So you know that a tornado might pass within reasonably small distance of your house or that the core of large hail or damaging winds would be passing within a short distance of your location. And those are usually issued in smaller areas, parts of a county up to maybe multiple counties at a time. And they usually only last, the warnings will last anywhere between a half an hour and an hour. Occasionally, when you've got really fast moving large thunderstorms you might see the warning window lasts a little bit longer, but usually it's you know, half hour to an hour. So that's the one thing you can do is make sure you know the difference between watches and warnings and just then when you're in a warning, or before you're in a warning, make sure you know what your correct precautions are. If there's a chance for a tornado, or if you're in a tornado warning, you should go to the lowest possible level of your home or building. And you should find as many walls between you and the outside as possible. If you don't have a basement, then you just go to the lowest level. And if you are, for example, caught outside, you try and get inside and get to shelter. So those are kind of the basics. There's a lot more: the National Weather Service wherever you live in Minnesota, the National Weather Service will have information about Severe Weather Awareness Week on their homepage. It'll be provided as a link. So, you just go to if you're in the Twin Cities area, you go to www weather.gov. So, it's dot weather.gov. And it's slash MPX. But you could also just look up National Weather Service Twin Cities, National Weather Service La Crosse, National Weather Service Duluth, Grand Forks, Aberdeen, Sioux Falls, those are the different offices that serve Minnesota. Find your homepage and just get that information. It's pretty generic information about the different severe weather hazards. And of course, during this week, we don't just talk about tornadoes and hail, but we also talk a little bit about floods, extreme heat and lightning. So, it's really important and it's kind of the only week where the information is going to be pushed at you. And as we know, Jim, then then we go to live drills.
Jim du Bois 06:56
March 10. Right. Right.
Kenny Blumenfeld 11:39
Once the season is on...
Jim du Bois 11:41
This is the dress rehearsal.
Kenny Blumenfeld 11:43
Yes, this is the dress rehearsal. Once the season is on, you know, the the sirens or warning are going to go off at some point, possibly where you live. And it's going to be mostly up to you to figure out what that means. The Weather Service does tag on limited call to action or information about what you need to do if you're in a warning. But this is that would not be the time to kind of refresh yourself. The time to refresh yourself is now. And I think on our drill that we have on Thursday, the chance of a cancellation because of an existing severe weather outbreak in Minnesota is pretty close to zero. So, this is a really good time to refresh your memory. And just, you know, oh yeah, these things happen here. I here's how long it takes me to get to my basement. Here's how long it takes me to get inside when I'm, you know, doing work in the yard, or if I'm down at the park. Here are my options if I'm at work. So, that's that's my recommendation. Do you have any kind of favorite tricks or tips when the sirens go off, Jim?
Jim du Bois 12:53
Well, I tend to rely on my NOAA Weather Radio. And we'll talk about that in just a second. But yeah, I think it's great to be aware. And that's what a watch does, it tells you to be on the alert for the possibility of severe weather. So that just basically means that you know, monitor media. If you have an NOAA Weather Radio, make sure you're within earshot of that which can be very helpful. We should note, too, on Thursday, that the tornado warning drill will take place twice. First time at 1:45pm. Most counties in Wisconsin and Minnesota will activate their outdoor warning siren systems. Now, we should emphasize the word outdoor as a modifier to warning siren systems. Because some people don't quite understand that those sirens were never really meant to be heard indoors, although you can, depending on where you live in proximity to a siren. But you can't rely on those alone because there's no guarantee you will hear them go off when they sound.
Kenny Blumenfeld 13:57
That is correct. Yeah, I mean, you know, I remember when I was a kid, I was down at the beach with my mom. It was a big derecho was charging down I-94 in 1983. And so, I had known because I was already, even though it was like third grade going into fourth grade, I already knew that these storms were coming and charging towards the Twin Cities and we knew, together we knew that we weren't going to be at the beach that long before it would be time to get in. But the sirens went off. And so we knew okay, that usually means you have a little bit of time for these severe weather...so, you know you have a little bit of time, hopefully, when you have some heads up. So we packed up our stuff and went home. And we're, you know, my brother was up in his room and he had been listening to the radio pretty high volume. He had no idea the sirens have been going off. You know, we were fine and we were safe, and we got to the basement. Everything, you know, in our house was fine, but there are a lot of people who get caught off guard because they don't hear the sirens. So, they don't take any action and then the storm or the tornado, whichever it is, hits them hard. And they say, oh, I didn't have any warning. And as you point out, yeah, the the sirens are really to alert people who are outside to get inside and get to shelter. People who are already inside have some, you know, they have some advantage and some protection already. And they might not hear those sirens, it needs something else like a NOAA Weather Radio, which has an alert function that will sound kind of a blaring tone that can't...
Jim du Bois 15:38
Yes.
Kenny Blumenfeld 15:39
Pretty hard to miss.
Jim du Bois 15:40
Exactly.
Kenny Blumenfeld 15:41
Pretty hard to miss. But yeah, it's a good point, these sirens, there aren't enough of them. And they're not loud enough to get into your house, we just don't have those kinds of systems. So, if you can hear it from the inside, you're lucky. But that's not really what they were designed to do.
Jim du Bois 15:56
So 1:45pm, we have the tornado drill. It's repeated again, it's 6:45pm on Thursday, April 15, Thursday, April 15. And this time, many counties in Wisconsin and Minnesota will also activate their warning siren systems again. And we should point out both at 1:45pm and at 6:45pm on Thursday, April 15, NOAA Weather Radios will trip as well. So, you have a lot of opportunities to participate in this drill, because you'll either hear the sirens, if you have a NOAA Weather Radio, that will jolt you into consciousness, I guess when you hear that go off. And also if you're monitoring media, social media, broadcast media, you'll hear about it as well. Kenny, I wanted to circle back to something you mentioned earlier, we were talking about severe weather and of course, tornadoes tend to get most of the press. I mean, they photograph well, in most cases; people are fascinated by them in so many ways. But there are a couple of other factors associated with severe weather that are underrated. One that comes to mind immediately is lightning.
Kenny Blumenfeld 17:04
Yeah, the lightning is the biggest kind of persistent hazard and killer that we have. I mean, not every year, but most years it's like the fatalities from lightning rival those of tornadoes and hurricanes. The difference is, tornadoes are associated with a vast minority of storms. Most storms do not produce tornadoes. And we are able to forecast tornadoes reasonably well, by identifying the kinds of environments that would lead to the kinds of storms that do produce tornadoes, and they tend to kind of form in swaths or swarms or outbreaks, it's pretty common that you don't have just one, but you have many. Lightning, on the other hand, is by definition part of every thunderstorm. And you don't need to have a severe thunderstorm to have fatal lightning. So lightning is much harder to warn for because, you know, every thunderstorm produces it. And we have, you know, 1000s upon 1000s of thunderstorms per day in the summertime, especially in the United States. And that can mean 10s of 1000s of lightning strikes. And that's just, it's just too much to keep up with every single one. And it's not really practical to issue a warning, every time there's a thunderstorm but you do see, you know, golf courses will essentially do that they will sound an alert to get people off of the, off of the courses. And there there are some other entities that that try and do something like that, because you know, it's just too dangerous. But for the rest of us, it's we're kind of on our own. Yeah, lightning is...and you know, lightning is unforgiving. You can run from a tornado and see which way it's moving, and you can get out of its way in many cases, but you cannot do that with lightning, you don't have the time. If lightning is going to strike you, you get very little, if no, if any warning at all. And it's instantaneous. And, and you can also be affected by it, injured by it or killed by it without it striking you directly, which is why we say don't shelter under trees and stay away from open areas. Don't be the tallest thing around because it could strike you, it could jump from something else that it strikes and kind of short circuit the path to you. It could get you through conduction if you're you know, near a fence or near plumbing, and it can get you through these ground currents, which is how a lot of people who think that they're getting shelter under trees, that's how a lot of them get affected, injured or killed by lightning. So yeah, it's an important hazard. Thanks for mentioning it and bringing it up.
Jim du Bois 19:46
Well, then another underrated killer comes to mind too, and that's flash flooding. We often hear a flash flooding associated not necessarily with any fatalities, but certainly I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Kenny, but I think as little as two feet of flowing water could potentially float a car. So, that means it doesn't take a lot of water going across a roadway to put you in harm's way. And then when we think about the the spectacular, in terms of loss of life, instances of flash flooding, one that comes to mind immediately and one that we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of next June, was the June 9 and 10th flash flood that struck the Black Hills and Rapid City, South Dakota. 238 deaths associated with that. Now, we should also point out when I said spectacular, that this was not a run of the mill flash flood, this caused the catastrophic failure of a major dam and water, literally a wall of water swept through Rapid City, South Dakota. And that was the reason for the extremely high death toll. But really, you have to be aware of where you are situationally in relation to bodies of water and hillsides, things that could accelerate the collection of water when there are heavy rainfalls.
Kenny Blumenfeld 21:08
Yeah, exactly. And also, some of the things that makes sense when you're in a tornado warning don't make sense when you are in a flash flood warning. So, if you're in a tornado warning, and you literally cannot get inside, and there's nowhere for you to go, then you should probably find a ditch. Lie down in that ditch, get as low as you can. Well, if you're in a flash flood warning, that same advice could kill you. Because as you know, water seeks its level and you know, so it'll pool up in the lowest places. And those ditches, those culverts, those low-lying roads, those are the ones that that start showing the standing water first. And when you have a really severe flood, like the one you just described, Jim, the water might not just fill up the low-lying areas, but you might see torrents of it, you know, breaching large structures and and, you can have massive amounts of water released simultaneously. So yeah, flooding is another one that I think you're right, I mean, both lightning and flooding, don't really, they don't have that, you know, you don't see flood chasers, even though it's always jaw dropping imagery, pinpointing it is always hard, you know, and it just doesn't have that, that photogenic quality that tornadoes have. And so, people tend to pay a little less attention to them. But you know, like lightning, floods kill a lot of people every year, in some cases, many more kind of depends on exactly how you're looking at it. And flash flooding is the most dangerous kind, you know, when we talk about, for people who don't know the difference, many, many years, when we melt our snow in the spring, that snow runs into areas, streams and rivers. The streams and rivers begin to swell up, and they fill their floodplains, and sometimes they even overtop their flood plains, and you get what's technically considered a flood. And yeah, this can inundate land and in, you know, maybe even in some people's homes and buildings, you might even have water that gets in. But the process of building to that kind of flood takes weeks, often, and you can really see it coming and get in time to, you know, sandbag and evacuate. Flash flooding, by contrast, you might get the exact same effect, but in a matter of hours. And it happens very quickly, often too fast for people to respond. And that's why it's so much more dangerous. So that's why we call it flash flooding. So yeah, good points. Jim. The flooding, for sure is an under-appreciated hazard. And you know, I mean, Minnesota is filled with streams and rivers. So, my recommendation is go to your favorite stream and river and just go in, you know, I used to do this in Minnehaha Creek, just to kind of remind myself, go get the water above your knees where it's really flowing, you know, find a section of that stream, where the water is up to your knees and is flowing and look at how hard it is for you to balance. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of water moving past you. And yeah, it does. So, it doesn't take much not just to float a car but then to move it too, so and you get an appreciation for it. Once you realize that, you know, you're this, you know, organism that you're bound to the ground and moving water, just a foot and a half high can take your feet out from under you. So yeah, definitely. It's an under-appreciated hazard for sure.
Jim du Bois 24:45
Well, we will post a link to the National Weather Service information about Severe Weather Awareness Week on the Way Over Our Heads website. And Kenny, you said we're going to be taking some steps backward. There's a chill in the air today. This is Monday the 12th of April. So, looking forward to this week, below normal temperatures for much of the state and continuing, I suppose, almost right up to the weekend. Correct?
Kenny Blumenfeld 25:14
Right now anyway, the predominant pattern is chilly. It's April. So if the sun comes out, which it probably will later in the week, yeah, we can warm up pretty nicely. And maybe if we get some southerly winds, we could get into the 50s or 60s pretty easily. But the predominant pattern is that we will be colder than what's normal for this time of year, for the next seven to 10 days. Most days, not every single day, necessarily, but most days. And yeah, the first couple days of this week will be cold. Rainy in southern Minnesota and central Minnesota and snowy in northern Minnesota. And I think the snow showers at least are going to get to all of us pretty much where we'll all see at least flakes. But there could be several inches of accumulations of wet snow in parts of northwestern Minnesota along the Red River and up towards that Northwest Angle area. And maybe even farther east towards say International Falls, at least some light accumulations on the grasses there, and again, potentially several inches in the northwestern parts of the state. But then we just stay kind of cool. I mean, everything I'm seeing suggests that give us you know, maybe 10 days of pretty cool air. And cool for April does mean, you know, below freezing in northern Minnesota at least and possibly getting near freezing and parts of central and southern Minnesota. And any weather system that comes through during that period is going to have rain and snow potential. So, it's a real dial backwards because, you know, remember we had heavy thunderstorms in March.
Jim du Bois 26:53
Right, right.
Kenny Blumenfeld 26:54
We had 85 degrees, one of the hottest early spring days that we'd had ever recorded in Minnesota was just last week. And so, now that we're pulling into a period where we could be colder than normal for several days, it's quite a contrast. And it's just worth commemorating, Jim, that I do have my eyes on the middle, and latter parts of this month only for kind of statistical reasons. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, Minnesota, each of those years, some major April snowstorms in the middle or latter part of the month. In 2018 and 19, it was kind of right in the middle of the month. 2020, yeah, it's also I guess, the middle of the month, but anything after the 10th or so of April is kind of unusual, and especially if it's in central or southern Minnesota. So, we're keeping our eye on that because if we get accumulating snow in the Twin Cities, for example, that would make this one of the longest snowfall seasons on record because remember, we had heavy snow October 20th, almost eight inches of snow in the Twin Cities. So, if we had even an inch of snow after this point that will make it one of the top five longest kind of integrator snowfall seasons on record. So, some, something to pay attention to. I would say though, that most Minnesotans are now safe removing their snow tires, you can start putting away those parkas. Even if you do get another couple snow storms or snow falls, there's, you know, just not much left at that season. I'd say that winter is all but over. And we're definitely heading towards spring.
Jim du Bois 28:42
Well, Kenny, we will enjoy the green up while we can here, and we know there's a possibility of some snow on the horizon, maybe the far horizon toward the end of April just given what we've seen over the past few years. But Kenny, always great talking with you. And have a great week and we'll check in with you next week.
Kenny Blumenfeld 29:02
Thank you. We'll talk to you next time. Jim.
Jim du Bois 29:04
This is Way Over Our Heads. It's a weather and climate podcast. I'm Jim du Bois. Kenny Blumenfeld’s a climatologist. We'll catch you next time.