Thursday, April 30, 2009

Warm-Up Coming?

We've got some good news for you over the next couple of days. After a cooler day for Friday, with highs still near 60, we are looking for some mid to upper 60s after that - and they should hang around for a while.


It should be nice to see some warmth and some sunshine - with yesterday's rainfall taken into consideration. This list below doesn't even talk about the totals not seeing thunderstorms last night - where places like Vermillion saw rainfall totals near 2/3" fall yesterday.


Here's to some drier weather so the farmers can get things settled in and the flood waters can start to go down!

Have a great night!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Where's The Cold Front?

The science of meteorology can be very challenging at times because it is considered an inexact science. It has many known and unknown variables that are changing all of the time. One of the main variables is a cold front. Many of them can be very very subtle and it can be nearly impossible to detect their exact location. Well, then you have a day like today where in couldn't be any more obvious for us big weather nerds. The images below are both current conditions (when I wrote this blog) and forecast conditions. See if you can pick out the cold front in all of them. The answer images are at the end.

The first set of images are the dewpoint temperature forecasts for this morning and around noon.
This second set consists of the forecast wind speeds for this morning and then again this afternoon.And the last image is a surface map snapshot that I took at roughly 7:30 this morning.Here are the answers. These are the exact five images that I showed above except I drew in the cold fronts' location in black.
If you didn't find the location of the front in all five pictures, don't beat yourself up about it. Just remember that its not an exact science so sometimes things can seemingly disappear and you have to fill in the blanks a little. For instance, the second wind image (the fourth image down), there is no longer an abrupt wind change in places along the front, therefore, you have to estimate where it is. This is why its not an exact science. But if you did get all five right, maybe you should give me a call and teach me a thing or two, lol.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz


















Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Severe Thunderstorm Warnings Update

We've already mentioned some of the large hail we've seen reported tonight so far... and we finally ended up getting some severe thunderstorm warnings. We talked about them on our weather just a few minutes ago - but here is a radar shot showing the latest for Roberts county:

It would be nice to get some hail pictures - but so far we haven't seen any from these storms. If you happen to be reading this and get some hail, send us your pictures at weather@kdlt.com or to a_shaffer@kdlt.com.

Have a good night & stay safe. Don't ever put yourself in danger to take a picture for us! Just wait til the storm has passed and then grab some hail.

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

What's With The All The Rain? What About The Thunderstorms Tonight?

As I am writing this blog post, we are watching a cold front move through South Dakota. It'll be causing some thunderstorms and some that could produce smaller hail (we've seen reports of large hail near Mission Ridge at 1.25" so far)- but then it should fizzle out as the sun sets and the cold front runs into air that has already had its "fun." This is what we're seeing so far as far as radar estimated rainfall totals:

If you click on that image you'll get more detail, but in general the light green colors coincide with radar estimated rainfall totals around 0.5"-0.7", and the blues are closer to 0.2"-0.3". You can see quite a bit of rain has been falling - but we have some re-development farther toward the West right now...

Look at this radar image from just a few seconds ago, taken from the Aberdeen radar:

Those are the thunderstorms we speak of - and they are forming right along the line of the cold front, so once the line passes you should be in the clear if you find yourself under one of those thunderstorms right now...

So... what has been causing all of this wet weather? Well, you've heard us mention the jetstream before. That is the region of high winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere that divides colder air to the North from warmer air to the South. It helps create rising air, which in turn helps create clouds & potentially rain. Why do we mention it? Well, look at this image below:
Do you see all of those yellows and pinks on the map? Those indicate regions of higher wind about 70% of the way to the top of the atmosphere. That is the jetstream - and it is right over us! Given what we just mentioned about the jetstream and rain and clouds - you are probably getting the idea! We're hoping to shift the jetstream - but for now no big shifts are in the works... stay tuned!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Rain Continues

Rain continuing to work its way mainly through the eastern areas of South Dakota and now into Minnesota and Iowa. Here is a radar image from about 7am. Notice the back edge of the rain toward Beadle and Davidson counties. This could mean that some of the steadier rainfall makes its way out a little earlier then expected IF there isn't anymore re-development on the back side of this line. We will have to watch it closely over the next few hours.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Rain & Thunder For Wednesday - But At What Time?

We're starting to really sort through what is coming toward us for Wednesday, and while you can never be 100% sure - at least our confidence is rising in this forecast. This is a more general overview of timing for this coming storm:

Overnight:

*Some Patchy Showers Develop

Wednesday Mid-Morning:

*Rain & Thunder Start To Pick Up
*Most Rain & Thunder To East & Southeast

Wednesday Evening:

*Rain Starts To Taper Off

It looks like by the time you sit down to eat your dinner most of the rain will have moved farther toward the East. It'll end up being quite wet, though, with some rainfall totals ending up near the 0.5 to 1" mark in the eastern and southeastern portions of our viewing area.

Have a great evening and make sure you don't forget your umbrella for Wednesday!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Sun Today, Rain Tomorrow

Lots of sunshine today but some changes are waiting in the wings as a low pressure will pull into the upper Midwest tonight that will cause some showers and storms to develop and continue through the day on Wednesday. Here is a link to a model that shows what it thinks the radar will look like over the next 24 hours.




Click Here!



Notice that a few scattered sprinkles begin around the midnight hour or so but just increase in intensity and coverage through the overnight. By the last image, which is at 7am, shows widespread rain taking over much of Eastern South Dakota.

This rain unfortunately may just add to the growing problems for farmers as they struggle to get their crops into the ground with these very wet conditions. The entire state is wet and according to Palmer's index for drought severity, much of South Dakota is extremely wet and would benefit from a stretch of dry weather.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Monday, April 27, 2009

A Chilly April? How Does This Month Compare To The Past Few?

At this point in the month, you've likely forgotten just how hot it felt last Thursday with those temperatures in the lower 90s... a very rare April occurrence. It did help raise our average high for the month, though, which counteracts some other chillier days - like today's 40s and lower 50s - and makes the average high just a little bit closer to the average high of 58 for the month of April.

You'll notice that we have warmed up a bit from the chilly start to the month, and we're actually warmer than we were last April by about 1.4 degrees. We've been below average, though, for the past few years. The last time we saw temperatures above average for the month of April was in 2006 - when average highs were above 62 degrees for the month!

The good news for this week is that aside from some cooler air during rain for Wednesday, we are looking for temperatures at least near the 60s for the next week - after today.

These are those computer-model high temperatures I love to show; forecasted for Tuesday. Upper 50s and lower 60s rule the day - which doesn't seem too bad after a cloudy & cool start to the week. We'll see how long it'll last with our next chance for showers and thunderstorms already arriving by Tuesday night & Wednesday.

Have a great night!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Cool Today and a Wet Week Ahead

Temperatures are really going to struggle today as cool air continues to be funneled into South Dakota. Combine that with cloudy skies and you have a recipe for some cool temperatures today. Highs only getting into the upper 40's and low 50's. Here is a model that shows the forecasted cloud cover and you will notice that it holds strong through much of the day.These images are three hours apart going from 10-4pm and show the clouds beginning to break up at the 4pm hour.

Looks like a wet week ahead though as the Hydrological Prediction Center (HPC) produced this forecast for the week.This shows that they (HPC) is expecting much of the area to get between one and two inches of rain between now and Saturday morning. This would not help the planting efforts that are taking place across much of the region because the fields need to be dry.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Foggy Sunday

This was definitely a common scene especially across the SD-MN border. Here's a plot of surface weather surface stations around our region.

You can see a lot of pink "=" signs going into Minnesota. That symbol means fog across the region. Up in Mobridge, you can see a "<-->" sign, that's an ice crystal sign, because the temp in Mobridge is just a bit above the freezing mark. The "." and ".." are rain and moderate rain, you can see an "R" shape down in Nebraska - that's the weather symbol for a thunderstorm with lightning. Here's a good site to figure out what some other symbols are on these observation stations. The farther south and east you get from us, the messier the weather gets. This is a composite of the Storm Prediction Center's radar and current "risk outlooks".
And you can definitely tell that's where all the action has happened so far. 11 tornadoes reported (the dots in red), 39 wind reports (the dots in blue) and 118 hail reports (the dots in green). You can definitely tell where the storms are.
We won't be seeing any of this kind of weather for awhile... enjoy the calm but cool next two days before storms fire up on Wednesday.

~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Snow . . .

Wow, so since Aaron pretty much went into detail about this second round... here's Friday's snow totals, sounds crazy to have this much snow in April, but it's not heard of. Though after a week where many saw temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s, it did come as a bit of a shock!More snow is on the way for NW South Dakota... here's a look at one model for the snow expected tonight and into Sunday morning. Just 1-2 inches are expected in Corson county, so Mobridge, be warned! Expect a breezy, if not windy day as well, and for folks in the rest of SD - we're expecting quite a bit of rainfall... Yankton could see up to 1.5 inches of rain when everything is said and done. Lesser amounts will be seen in the north, Aberdeen only expect to see a quarter of an inch or so. There is some unstable air in the extreme SE region of our viewing area, so we could hear a few rumbles of thunder, some lightning strikes and a slight possibility of small hail. I don't expect much as far as severe weather, most of that will be to our south.

Enjoy puddle jumping! Or movie watching if you'd prefer to stay dry :)
~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka

Friday, April 24, 2009

Missing The Severe Storms... And A Wet Weekend With Breaks

There is good news today despite the big cooldown from our 90s we saw smash the old record highs yesterday. We're missing the severe storms. Our cold front has plowed ahead quite a bit faster than it looked like we'd see originally. That has meant the severe weather is occurring more toward eastern Minnesota and Iowa, and less in our area.

This is a radar image showing some severe thunderstorm warnings out there as I am writing this:

Lots of strong cells out there - and already moving into Wisconsin. There is another chance out there in our far eastern counties for Sunday, but for most of us we can just expect about two doses of rain.

Over the past few hours we've see some reports of rain and snow out there - with rain to the East and South, and snow/mix to the North and West. This is what it looks like in Hardy Station near the Wyoming/South Dakota border:

That is not very representative of snow seen elsewhere, but it does show the power of this storm system as it plows ahead through our area.

We are looking for rain to hold off toward the East for the most part until late tonight, with most of it quickly tapering off by the time we head toward tomorrow afternoon - with the possibility of some sunshine peeking out as well... but not much warmth.

Toward Sunday early in the morning we look for more rain to come through. This could end up leaving us quite wet - with anywhere from 0.5" to 1.5" of total rainfall ending up on the ground by Sunday evening when things start to taper off... This is a map of 24-hour rainfall forecasts for Sunday morning to Monday morning:

You can see some totals closing in on around an inch of rain - which could leave us a bit soggy for our Sunday evening.

Stay tuned to KDLT & have a great weekend!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Hot Yesterday.....Almost Cold Today

Whew it was a hot one yesterday. As Aaron showed you, nearly a dozen locations hit record highs yesterday. But let me just show you how incredible this heat really was. Here are the high temperatures for a couple hundred locations across North America.
Notice that there are only a few places on the continent that saw temperatures warmer then us yesterday. So this heat is incredibly uncommon for this time of the year.

Case and point, we are going to send a dramatic end to that warmth today as some portions of South Dakota will struggle to get out of the 30's. A cold front is progressing through the southeast this morning and is actually a little faster and a little stronger then I expected. Because of this, looks like temperatures may even be a few degrees cooler then current forecasts. Although, a couple models like the one below are still showing temperatures rebounding a little across the south and east this afternoon.
This is an image of what one model is forecasting temperatures to be at 4pm this afternoon. Notice the HUGE temperature contrast from northwestern South Dakota which is still in the 30's, to northwest Iowa who are in the low 80's. Tomorrow everyone will cool off as all highs are expected in the 40's and 50's.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Record Heat Today & Severe Weather Possible Tomorrow

We have lots of action going on in our area over the next few days. We kicked it all off today with highs far exceeding anything we had actually officially forecasted for today. We had some signs that this might happen, but with weather like this at this time of year we would typically see more clouds that would lessen the warming a bit. All of that being said - it was hot today! Look at some high temperatures that broke records as of our 6pm show:

On the left side of those numbers are the old record highs - and on the right are the new ones. Pretty impressive temperatures for late April!

Unfortunately, all good things must end - and instead of seeing our first 90s day on a weekend when we can enjoy it, we are looking at a cold front coming through and cooling things down. In addition to cooling we are looking for the potential of severe weather Friday. Right now it seems that the best severe risk will be in our eastern region of the viewing area - with the best chances for large hail and isolated tornadoes occurring to the far east & southeast. As for timing, there is some negative energy that will keep storms from forming at first - but it looks like by late afternoon/early evening that will start to erode and we'll see storms firing up.

Also, keep in mind that severe weather can also happen outside of these boundaries - this is just where the best chances are starting to show up. Stay tuned to KDLT for updates tomorrow once storms start firing up.

With all of our heat and winds we are seeing a risk of wildfires starting up - and thankfully we haven't seen anything big quite yet. While I was at the Bahamas Weather Conference last week I met a couple of chief meteorologists from stations in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Look at what they're dealing with!



Keep these guys in your thoughts, as well as all the other people who live around there, and stay tuned to KDLT again for any severe weather.

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Record Heat?

No question about it, its going to be a hot one today with everybody getting into the 80's. But how close are we to seeing record highs. Well, we are going to be close. In many cases, our forecast highs are just a couple degrees shy of the record so there definitely could be a couple locations that tie or break their record. Here is a list from the National Weather Service that shows their forecast highs vs. the record highs for the date.Most of the old records were set back in the 80's and 90's but for Sioux Falls, Sioux City, and Mitchell, you have to go all the way back to 1939 to find the records.

Enjoy it while it lasts because many locations will see temperatures plummet 30 degrees by the weekend. Here is a look at temperatures expected for noon today compared to noon tomorrow.
Notice many areas of the north are only in the 50's tomorrow while portions of Iowa will likely get back into the 80's. Then everybody will be chilly on Saturday with highs in the 40's and 50's.
~KDLT Metorologist Cody Matz

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Warmth... And More Warmth - Then Cooling?

Well - you've probably had a chance to enjoy the nice warmth both yesterday and today. Weather that some people would just call "perfection" has been around our area, with a light breeze and warmer temperatures... well - things look even warmer for your Thursday. Look at this map of computer model predicted temperatures for the nation on Thursday:

If things pan out as they could - we could be seeing 80s all the way north to the North Dakota border, as well as halfway up the state of Minnesota! Great weather indeed, especially considering we're going to see the first day of 80s on the average first day for Sioux Falls - April 23rd. Interesting. Perhaps we'll be seeing a more "average" type of late spring and summer.

Unfortunately we will be dipping below average once again on Saturday as some rain moves into the area. This is what the computers are thinking for Saturday's highs, and we'll be watching that for any more lowering. Hopefully we stay above freezing far enough that the plants I just planted outside don't have any issues (and any you've planted!)!

Notice the 30s out west... it looks like some of us are not quite done with a wintry mix type of precipitation. Right now we're not going all out and calling for snow, but it is possible that some of us could see a mix. What we're going to be watching closely is known as the "wet bulb" temperature, and you can click here to learn more about that. All we'll say here is that we want to make sure the wet bulb temperature is above the freezing mark so that we can avoid snow and just get rain.

Have a great night & enjoy the great weather for Thursday!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

James River at Record Levels

The James river continues to be well above flood stage and in a few locations across the north, it is exceeding record levels. Here are a few charts showing the current river levels at some locations as well as a forecast for the next couple of weeks.
As you see, one of these areas is above the record level and the others are expected to get close with crests not expected and for at least another week. It could then be a month or more before the river levels are back below flood stage. And just to add insult to injury, the forecast calls for more widespread rain this upcoming weekend.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A Cool Idea For Emergency Management

Another really interesting presentation was by Brian Norcross - who many of you have probably seen on national TV doing weather. He has a company called America's Emergency Network and they are trying to really modernize how emergency managers handle a potential emergency and a resulting evacuation (or just an emergency itself). This is a good one to watch, just like the one below!



~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

Loss Prevention Discussion At The Bahamas Weather Conference

This is a portion of the conference that I really enjoyed. I actually had dinner with Julie Rochman, president and CEO of the Institute of Business and Home Safety.



~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer

90's in South Dakota???

OK, so I dont mean to get your hopes up, but I saw something this morning that caught my attention and gave me a quick chuckle. The national weather service issues what they call a "forecast discussion" where they talk about what they forecasted. Well here is a copy of that discussion this morning.Just in case you can't read it, basically it says that they (NWS) has toyed with the idea of adding 90's for south central South Dakota. Who would have thought that we would be hearing this just a week or two ago.

Unfortunately, it will leave just as fast as it gets here because temperatures will be plummeting by Friday and Saturday as it looks like highs will be back in the 50's and 60's across the state.
~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Monday, April 20, 2009

Bahamas Weather Conference & Disaster Preparedness

Today kicks off severe weather awareness week for South Dakota, and it is an interesting coincidence that I just got back from learning about forecasting for large-scale weather disasters & readying the community for them at the Bahamas Weather Conference. Make sure you go to our weather page by clicking here to see today's information on severe weather awareness.

I'll probably be posting a few different posts over the next couple of days as I sort through all the information I learned, but we'll start with a couple of videos and some information as well:

They really value the conference in the Bahamas - and it really showed! The people there were so friendly toward us, and made us weather-geek types feel like we belong. That picture above was from the first night when they hosted a welcome party for us.


Then the fun began... aside from meeting tons & tons of other meteorologists we did actually learn about the weather as well. Mostly talking about hurricanes, we also covered some topics about emergency management and how to prepare people for floods and hail and things like that. While a hurricane might not make a direct hit on the Sioux Empire, we definitely feel the impacts in a number of ways. It strains our insurance policies, but we learned from one speaker that we shouldn't worry about the insurance industry's ability to pay our claims despite our economic policies.

That picture above was of a forum on the effects of climate change on hurricane strength and development. While my camera kept taking blurry pictures, the guy on the left at the table is Dr. Steve Lyons from the Weather Channel. The 2nd in is Dr. Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center. The 3rd in is Dr. Bill Reed, the current director of the National Hurricane Center, and the 4th on (the one on the right) is Dr. Jim Kossin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They had quite a spirited result, and if you are at all interested in hurricanes and effects of climate change you should make sure to email me (a_shaffer@kdlt.com) and I'll fill you in on the details.

That picture is me with Dr. Bill Gray of Colorado State University. He is quite the spirited atmospheric scientist - and basically one of the founders of modern hurricane science. I was honored to have a picture taken with him at the conference. Just another fun thing that happened on this trip to the Bahamas.

Of course, it wasn't all about the work (as you probably guessed a long time ago). The Bahamas are an AMAZING place... just look at these last few pictures.

Quite a trip - And I'll keep updating you as I figure out how to post video of the presentations themselves.

Have a great night & enjoy this week's warm-up!

~KDLT Meteorologist Aaron Shaffer