Heat warning expires for Twin Cities

Update 9pm:

The excessive heat warning expired at 9pm. Several record highs were set today including 95 in the metro (previous record was 88 set in 1875) and 92 in Eau Claire.

More on record highs later.

Storms will continue to rumble in the Dakotas and far northwest Minnesota overnight. There have been some reports of severe weather and flooding.

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EASTERN ND/GRAND FORKS ND

836 PM CDT MON MAY 24 2010

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...

..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....

..REMARKS..

0830 PM FLASH FLOOD THIEF RIVER FALLS 48.11N 96.18W

05/24/2010 PENNINGTON MN PUBLIC

FIELDS UNDER WATER IN AND AROUND THE GREATER THIEF RIVER

FALLS AREA.

A few storms could approach western Minnesota overnight.

PH

Here's one you don't see in May too often.

The Twin Cities NWS has issued an excessive heat warning today for the Twin Cities metro area. The warning includes Hennepin and Ramsey counties, basically the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro.

A combination of record heat and high humidity will produce heat indexes of between 95 and 100 degrees this afternoon in the metro. The heat index is what it feels like on your body when you factor temperature and humidity and the body's ability to cool through evaporation.

Based on the 10-year average from 1994 to 2003, excessive heat claimed 237 lives each year. By contrast, floods killed 84; tornadoes, 58; lightning, 63; and hurricanes, 18.

Record breaker:

Today's likely high in the 90s will smash the previous record of 88 degrees at Twin Cities Airport set in 1875. One forecast technique yields temperatures as hot as 95 to 96 degrees for the metro and parts of southern Minnesota. Don't be surprised to see a few bank thermometers blinking 96 today. Numerous high temperature records will likely be set this afternoon in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Midwest.

Thunder threat:

The atmosphere is extremely unstable today with all the warm air near the surface. There is also a "cap" or warm layer aloft in southern Minnesota that may inhibit T-Storms, but thunder is likely in the northern half of Minnesota and in the Dakotas today closer to cool air aloft. There is a risk for any storms that get going to morph into severe storms with heavy flooding downpours, large hail and damaging winds.

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How do you spell relief?

A good friend of mine, Richard Calvelli passed away recently in Oro Valley, Arizona. Richard was an ad executive with Saatchi & Saatchi in New York and L.A. for over 25 years. Think Mad Men. Richard is credited with writing such classic ad phrases as "I love what you do for me, Toyota" and "How do you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S." Richard was one of those rare talents, and such a kind and caring person. Our families remain very close, and his son is the same age as our son, both high school freshmen.

We'll spell relief this week in the form of a cold front which will push a cooler drier Canadian air mass into Minnesota Wednesday. The front will drop temperatures from the sweltering 90s into the low 80s by week's end. Dew points will fall from near 70 to the comfortable upper 40s by Friday.

Thank you members!

It was a joy to meet so many of you at our MPR member event Sunday! A whopping 1,800 of you wonderful, curious, intelligent MPR member supporters showed up at 7th & Cedar for the event Sunday. My voice is a little hoarse from talking to so many of you, but I am blown away by your support for what we do at MPR and your thoughtful insightful questions. Thanks for your support!

Stay cool today and Tuesday. And keep a weather eye on the sky.

PH