If You Like It Hot, This Is Your Week
Way Over Our Heads Transcript
Wed, 6/9 12:04PM • 18:39
SPEAKERS
Jim du Bois, Kenny Blumenfeld
Kenny Blumenfeld 00:00
Are you happy, Jim? This is Way Over Our Heads, a weather and climate podcast. I am climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld, and with me is professional broadcaster Jim du Bois, who ordered a heat lover's pizza with extra sauce. Are you happy, Jim, are you liking this?
Jim du Bois 00:21
I am liking it. But I'll put a couple of caveats on it. I understand that a lot of people are not fans of hot weather for very good reasons. I also as a gardener, and as the owner of farm property, am concerned about our ongoing dry conditions. And also hot weather like this, you really need to take it seriously. Because if you are outside and engaging in any kind of physical activity, physical exertion, you really need to pay attention to staying hydrated and listen to what your body is doing. If your body is giving you signs that you're doing too much, you need to stop, get to a cool place, drink plenty of liquids. And just don't take this for granted. I mean, very serious consequences can come from a heatwave like this. And I did notice, Kenny, that, you know, we hear so much about tornadoes and other severe weather events producing fatalities and injuries. But actually the biggest killer in this country is heat.
Kenny Blumenfeld 01:21
Yeah, I mean, it is, it's kind of a quiet killer, right? Because you don't see it happening the way you do, you know, you can see the tornado, you can see lightning. And people just usually, you know, quietly succumb. Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, folks who live outside, and you know, we have a lot of that in the Twin Cities and in other parts of Minnesota. And, you know, I feel pretty uncomfortable being out there for, you know, 45 minutes if I'm not wearing the right clothes, so I just can't even imagine what it's like to, you know, not really have shelter. And fortunately, you know, various entities around the state do a decent job of opening up cooling shelters. But Jim, did you know, I mean, I'm sort of giving away the ending, but do you know-and this is a quiz for you and for other listeners-what the most recent mass casualty weather event in Minnesota History was? And we're talking about, it doesn't have to kill the people. But you know, multiple, often dozens of injuries and hospitalizations from the same event. Do you want to take a stab at that? You got any guesses?
Jim du Bois 02:31
Boy Kenny, that's a tough one. Nothing comes to mind immediately. But just because of the topic we're on today, I'm going to speculate that it has something to do with heat.
Kenny Blumenfeld 02:41
You are correct. And the answer is, and this is surprising to I think a lot of folks, the answer is the 2007 Twin Cities marathon, which was in October. So not exactly when you think of heat waves. But this just shows how sensitive we are to heat because here you have a bunch of elite athletes who are in better shape then the vast majority of us, and there were dozens of hospitalizations from this event. And they were serious. I mean, people went into cardiac arrest. I mean, it was a significant casualty event with, you know, lots of hospitalizations. And it was because, you know, for the conditions, it was not scorching hot. Temperatures were generally in the 80s. The dew points were right around 70 degrees, and people just weren't prepared. They hadn't been training for those kinds of conditions. I mean, usually in October, we'll think of a typical October morning. It's crisp, not muggy. You know, so even though it wasn't a mid-July heatwave, even kind of a fringe heatwave, if people aren't prepared, they can in almost, you know, any circumstance succumb to the effects of extreme heat. So yeah, lots of cautionary tales out there. Obviously, people have to be careful. But truthfully, Jim, physically, you're kind of enjoying the weather? You like going outside even when it's 94 degrees?
Jim du Bois 04:05
Well, Kenny, I do I've been actually doing quite a bit of landscaping and yard work, again paying attention to those body signals and keeping very well hydrated and taking little breaks every now and then. But again, I love this weather. My body seems to acclimate well to it. I know that's not the case for other people. So, while I revel in this heat, I understand it's a miserable thing for a lot of folks.
Kenny Blumenfeld 04:31
Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't mind it, because it's, I find it statistically fascinating. And I always love the opportunity to go jump in a lake. I haven't jumped in a lake, and mostly what I've been trying to do is responsibly manage the temperature of our house. Ah, yeah. Yeah, it's been fun. So we had a few restless nights, I would say, but you know that that all comes with the territory. I mean, you shouldn't live in places where you couldn't survive it if you didn't hav e your accoutrement of modern life. But climatologically, this is a fascinating heat wave. I have to tell you, Jim, this is a, it's a record breaker for sure. It's not the worst heatwave we've ever had. But it's fascinating. And it's potent for how early in the season it is, and what kind of stats it's putting up for this early in the season. So, shall we go into it a little bit?
Jim du Bois 05:32
Let's do it, Kenny.
Kenny Blumenfeld 05:34
Alright, so when we talk about early season, these are always arbitrary thresholds, but just to establish, the vast majority of Minnesota's great heat waves have occurred in July. July eats up about 40% of our 90 degree days across the state. And so, most of our heat records are set in July. And so, it's not unusual during summer, and especially July, to have multiple days where the temperature climbs into the 90s, or even into the one hundreds in parts of the state. But once you're before about June 15th, it becomes a lot less common. There's a few reasons for that. One is, you know, early in the summer, the summer is still pretty young, we're still often in a fairly active weather pattern where the air masses are changing hands frequently. And you kind of have to think of heat waves as kind of a creature of midsummer, where, you know, the jet stream is way off to the north, and all of the changeable weather is somewhere in southern or central Canada. And we're just stuck, you know, hot, hot, hot. So, it's a little unusual to get into a pattern like this before about mid June. We did it right before you and I started podcasting. We actually had one on Memorial Day weekend of 2018. And you probably loved that. We hit 100 degrees that Memorial Day and had six days in a row in the Twin Cities where the high temperature was above 90. But this one is actually, even though our temperature wasn't quite as high, we hit 99 on what was that Saturday, the fifth in the Twin Cities. It's been noteworthy for the lack of cooling at night, the really high low temperatures. I mean, have you noticed that the 75s? I mean, of course the Twin Cities has this a little worse, our urban heat island is keeping us even warmer, but you can look to other stations in southern and central Minnesota in the last few nights they haven't even gone below 70. That kind of behavior is definitely a midsummer type of creature, and not something we expect early in June. So, International Falls hit 98 degrees on Friday. That's their hottest slash earliest record. In other words, they had never been that hot so early in the year. That was a big one. The overnight low in the Twin Cities on Saturday was 78 degrees. That's also the warmest we've ever been for an overnight low so early in the season. We had multiple high temperature records on Friday and Saturday, every major climate station in Minnesota broke a high temperature record on Friday. So, that's pretty good performance right there. You know, we have cooled down a little bit in parts of far northern Minnesota where it started raining, it had some rain and thunderstorms. So the heat has somewhat broken in International Falls, and then there's always a little bit of a break along the north shore. But southern and central Minnesota are still roasting. And so now we're on day six in many places, as we record this, it's Tuesday, June 8. And although we can't guarantee it looks like we're gonna notch 90 degrees again in the Twin Cities and other parts of southern and central Minnesota. And depending on where you are, it'll make it either six days or five days in a row. And if you look at the average temperature during that time, it's among the, if not the very warmest, sort of five or six day run prior to June 15 anywhere on record. And in the Twin Cities, that record goes back almost 150 years. So it's really an impressive, it's an impressive heatwave.
Jim du Bois 09:28
And Kenny, in a normal year, we'd get, what, about 13 days where we have a high of 90 or above? Is that ballpark?
Kenny Blumenfeld 09:35
Yeah, that is correct. And so you know, we could conceivably hit that number in June alone. I mean, we're only seven plus days into the month and we've already notched five or six depending on if we actually make it today. The forecast has 90s again on Wednesday, Thursday, maybe Friday. That gets us a cool, what, 10 or 11 days? So we're off to a fast start. And I know, I don't know if it brings up any questions for you. But we've been getting in my day job, we've been getting a lot of questions about, does this mean and you know, every day of summer is going to be hot? Is this going to be the hottest summer on record? Fortunately, it's way too early to make calls like that. And fortunately, we have a lot of stiff competition. You know, the summer of 1936 was so unbelievably hot, I don't think Minnesotans can even comprehend it. Virtually every all- time high temperature record throughout the state was set that summer. And the summer of 1988, where, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners weren't around then. But for those of us who do remember, the summer of 1988 was brutal. We had 44 days in the Twin Cities with temperatures of 90 or higher. And I think four or five days where the temperature exceeded 100 degrees, including 105 at the end of July in the Twin Cities. I think even, there were even stations in western Minnesota that hit 110. Which we just don't do that that much. So, suggesting that this is going to be the hottest summer on record, It's premature because the competition is so stiff, but we are off to a hot start. And you know, I wouldn't be surprised if June puts up some notable hot weather statistics.
Jim du Bois 11:26
Well, Kenny, you've been talking about those high low temperatures we've been experiencing over the past few days, I think everybody can notice that the humidity is beginning to creep up, we're seeing the dew point starting to increase. And as we get more moisture in the air, it's easier for the atmosphere to retain heat. So are we going to see continued high low temperatures over the next several days?
Kenny Blumenfeld 11:51
Yeah, I do think so Jim. That's a good point. And for those who, if saying retain heat is kind of confusing, just think of it like this: when the air is really dry it can change temperatures quickly; the lack of water allows the temperature to go up and down pretty readily. So, as the sun comes out in the desert areas, temperature shoot up, sun goes down same areas and the temperature drops. So you might get a 50 degree temperature range and typical summer day in the desert. Once you start adding moisture to the air, it takes more energy to heat the air up and it retains that energy, and so it's harder to cool it down. So that's why tropical areas only have a small temperature range daily, you know. So, in Baton Rouge in the summertime, you know, the high might be 94 degrees, but the low is only going to be 78 or something like that. So yeah, adding moisture to the air will make it harder to cool off at night. And you're right, we, folks probably started noticing the humidity on Monday. So, we could sort of now start talking about not just temperature, but the Heat Index values because the moisture in the air makes it even feel hotter. Yeah, so until this breaks, Jim, I think that we're gonna have warm nights above 70 degrees. And this is already the longest run in the Twin Cities again, up to or and including June 15. So through June 15, this is already the longest run of nights where the temperature has stayed at or above 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, we haven't gone below 70 degrees in the Twin Cities since, was it last Thursday? So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, we're on Tuesday now. So, we are already on our sixth day without going below 70 degrees. So that's a long run for this early in the season and even looking at any time of the summer, this is going to be one of the longest runs where we stay entirely above 70 degrees. So this is quite a heat wave.
Jim du Bois 13:50
Well, is there any relief inside Kenny, any cold front coming our way? Any much needed rain coming our way?
Kenny Blumenfeld 13:57
Yeah, so to the much needed rain. The good news, if there is any really good news with this, it's that on the northern edge of this heat, the last few days have been very active in North Dakota and parts in northern Minnesota. Now it hasn't been a region wide wash out where they've had widespread heavy precipitation, but there has been some heavy precipitation. I don't see great prospect for the kind of heavy rain that we really need regionally, but our best chance in central and southern Minnesota is going to be basically Thursday night-Friday morning into parts of Friday. That's kind of the main chance other than that up 'till that time, you know, we could see some afternoon thunderstorms that would be pretty isolated or in a narrow band any of the days just given these conditions. Any little boundaries that set up could easily ignite isolated thunderstorms, but the the main event would tend to be on on Thursday, Thursday evening, overnight. It's just the timing isn't great, and that the trajectory of the storm system isn't great. So, I can't guarantee widespread heavy precipitation. Out in parts of the Dakotas, there's going to be a severe weather outbreak quite likely on Thursday with large hail and maybe some tornadoes, but those storms are going to be pretty old by the time they get into Minnesota. And it's just going to be the wrong time of day to talk about real, you know, real beneficial rains. But I think, you know, north, parts of northern Minnesota still stand a chance of getting an inch or more over the next few days. So that's good. In terms of the heat breaking, I mean, this system coming through Thursday night into Friday, is going to, quote, break the heat. And there's kind of a divergence in the weather models in what happens after Friday. I said, quote, break the heat, because it's not looking like, you know, temperatures are going to drop into the 60s or necessarily be refreshing. But giving us a break anyway, with temperatures in the 80s for highs and maybe 60s for lows, as opposed to, you know, 90s and low one hundreds for highs and mid-70s for lows, so a bit of a break. And then, once you get kind of into the weekend, past the weekend, two of the three models just bring the heat right back. The Canadian model and the European model just have the heat coming back by Sunday or Monday, and that most of next week, we're hot again. The American model, the GFS, actually has, in some instances anyway, indicated that maybe mild air kind of digs in for several days. And maybe we spend several days next week, right around normal for temperatures. So, there's some hints, but we have seen from these models also some hints that we have a long term persistent heat event. We're going to talk on Friday to commemorate the Lake Harriet tornado of 1981, the Roseville Har-Mar tornado, the Edina tornado of June 14 ,1981 because it's the 40th anniversary of that event. But then I'm going to be gone for a while, and so while I'm gone, I don't want to disappoint people. I want people to know it could go either way. I could see June being dominated by warm to hot weather with only a few breaks thrown in there. And I could also see, you know, there's a reasonable, though it's not a smoking gun at this point, reasonable chance that temperatures fall back to normal for several days or so. But yeah, so there's at least a minor break or minor relief in sight coming basically Friday, Saturday. And then the question is, does the heat return immediately after that? Or is it a real break?
Jim du Bois 17:56
Well, if you are the type of person who enjoys this hot weather, this is your time. But again, everybody needs to be very cautious. Make sure you stay hydrated. Listen to what your body is telling you. Take a break if you're working outside, be careful if you're doing any strenuous activities at all, and stay safe. And Kenny, we will check in with you on Friday of this week and talk about that 40th anniversary.
Kenny Blumenfeld 18:22
Very good. Well, good talking with you, Jim and yeah, everybody just stay comfortable and don't work too hard.
Jim du Bois 18:30
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.