Rude Awakening: Thunder and heavy rain
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Doppler storm total rainfall from Wednesday morning shows heavy rain overnight west of the Twin Cities.
Boom!
That's the last thing I remember as my feet suddenly hit the floor at 2:30 this morning. That thunder crash sounded like a short crisp explosion in the weather lab back yard. Next thing I remember is racing down to the weather lab radar to look at a line of storms flaring in the southwest metro.
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I saw the storms developing on radar before bed last night in western Minnesota. I even saw the lightning flash looking out to the west before my head hit the pillow. I knew I would likely be awakened in the middle of the night, but the thunder boom was still a shocker in my deep blissful sleep. Such is the life of a weatherman on a sleep deprived thundery night.
No doubt many of you had the same experience overnight. An arc of thunderstorms developed last night in eastern South Dakota and into western Minnesota. The slow-moving storms dumped heavy rains in the Benson and Appleton area where doppler storm total rainfall and surface reports indicate over 5" of rainfall overnight. The surface weather station at Appleton recorded a whopping 5.34"!
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As you can see in the doppler storm total rainfall image above, the band of heaviest rain stretched from Appleton to just northwest of Spicer.
More rain on the way:
The overnight rain was just round one of a slow-moving weather system that will bring waves of showers and thunderstorms through Thursday. The system will set up shop over the state, bringing more rainfall to some of the drought parched areas. It will not rain all the time, but expect periods of rain into Friday morning before the system pulls out.
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Twin Cities doppler radar loop here.
Summer returns this weekend:
It looks as if the weather will change for the better just in time for the weekend. High pressure will return, and bring back sunshine and warmer temperatures. Look for highs in the lower 80s in southern Minnesota, with upper 70s north.
Hurricane Bill intensifies:
Hurricane Bill became a monster category 4 storm overnight. Sustained winds are now clocked at 135 mph. Hurricane Hunter aircraft measured some higher gusts within the storm during a reconnaissance flight overnight.
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The good news is Bill's track still takes it largely into open ocean away from land. Let's hope it stays that way!
PH