Seeley’s Friday Weather Talk: Freeze hit hard this week

Here are some highlights form Mark's Friday Weather Talk post.

You can read the full post here.

Minnesota WeatherTalk for Friday, April 13, 2012

To: MPR's Morning Edition

From: Mark Seeley, Univ. of Minnesota, Dept of Soil, Water, and Climate

Subject: Minnesota WeatherTalk for Friday, April 13, 2012

HEADLINES

-Hard freeze this week

-Soils still dry

-Weekly Weather potpourri

-MPR listener question

-Almanac for April 13th

-Word of the Week

-Past weather

-Outlook

Topic: Hard freeze this week

Several areas of the state reported morning lows in the teens and twenties F this week, the coldest temperatures since March 9th for many communities. The early spring advancement in vegetative growth had many concerned for plant damage, notably to flowers, trees, and shrubs which had already budded out or bloomed. It remains to be seen how many of the state's apple orchards were adversely affected by the freezing temperatures. Growers are cautiously optimistic that damage to orchards won't be extreme. Some of the minimum temperature observations included: 16 degrees F at Wadena, Windom, and Itasca State Park; 15 degrees F at Babbitt; 14 degrees F at Bemidji, Hallock, and Embarrass; and 13 degrees F at Park Rapids, lowest in the 48 contiguous states on April 11th. You can read more about the low temperatures on our web site at:

http://www.climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/hard_freeze_120410.htm

Topic: Mid-April and still soils are very dry

With field working season underway, and some of the state's 2012 crops already in the ground many Minnesota farmers are waiting for rain to replenish the dry soils that were a carryover from last year. The precipitation deficiency reported by some climate observers is very significant. There are many areas of the state that have reported precipitation totals since last August (a period of 8.5 months) that are more than 7 inches behind normal values for the period. Some of these locations are in the list below, showing how the deficiency for this 8.5 month period ranks historically.

Location; Precipitation Total; Departure from Normal; Historical Rank

(8/1/2011-4/11/2012); (8/1/2011-4/11/2012);

Lamberton; 5.35 inches; -7.51 inches; Driest of record

Winnebago; 8.03 inches; -7.17 inches; Driest of record

Marshall; 4.66 inches; -8.69 inches; 2nd Driest

Granite Falls; 4.89 inches; -7.82 inches; 3rd Driest

St James; 6.35 inches; -7.72 inches; 4th Driest

Canby; 3.97 inches; -8.70 inches; 5th Driest

Zumbrota; 8.96 inches; -7.54 inches; 7th Driest

So far in April, rainfall has been lacking or totally absent in many areas of the state. Rainfall normals for April range typically from 1.50 to 3.00 inches. MSP International Airport in the Twin Cities is one of the few places in the southern half of the state that has received over 0.50 inches so far this month (0.63 inches). In the north some areas have received more, for example 0.75 inches at Orr and 0.70 inches at Cook. Some significant showers are expected this weekend. In fact, on Friday morning some areas of southern Minnesota had already received a half to one inch of rainfall. But the outlook for the remainder of April does not favor abundant rainfall in the state with the possible exception of southeastern counties. So by the end of April we may see these precipitation deficits increase even more.