Severe Weather Awareness Week: How many ‘tornado warning minutes’ each year?

Welcome to severe weather awareness week in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

This is usually the first week every year when we babble about risk areas, sirens and funnel clouds.

Last year in late April? A wintry hangover had us fending off the next incoming dump of snow, and borderline abusive and threatening emails from disgruntled weather fans. It's so much better to be the weatherman when you can forecast and deliver 70s on Easter Sunday.

This week brings a mix of bright sunshine, cooler breezes and soaking rains. Even wintry Duluth can hail the onset of spring these days.

 Variety: Spice of Minnesota weather life

It's good to be a weather geek in Minnesota. The next weather change is often only minutes away, or days away at most. Sunshine and 70s, dry breezes and high fire danger, placid cool spring days, soaking rains and potential snow showers all in the same week?

No problem.

Here are glances at the week ahead  from the Global Forecast System and meteogram models, which predict cooler breezes and the potential for soaking rains and some thunder Wednesday and Thursday.

 Highs and lows

Upper Midwest weather in springtime is like an exquisitely choreographed waltz. A parade of high and low pressure systems dances along steering currents of a swiftly flowing jet stream. Here's the loop showing Tuesday's placid incoming high pressure system, followed by a pair of deepening rain producing lows Wednesday afternoon.

Our Wednesday/Thursday weather system looks to be a productive and welcome rain producer. If current trends hold, many of us could get a welcome soaking of a half inch to 1 inch or more by Thursday evening.

The southern end of the system could have enough energy to generate some severe weather. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center slight risk area stays south Wednesday, but it's getting closer as the potential for severe weather slides north with the season.

 Severe Weather Awareness Week 2014

Last year Minnesota got lucky. Only 15 tornadoes skipped across the vast plains of Minnesota.

Are we feeling lucky two years in a row? I doubt it.

My weather spidey senses and my view of trends this spring say we'll likely have a far more active tornado year in 2014. The contrast of snow cover to the north, and increasingly warm air to the south should generate some strong storms this year capable of producing more periodic severe outbreaks than last year.

We've already had the first tornado touchdowns in Minnesota -- in late March. Here's cool map from Iowa Emergency Management via  NOAA's  Southern Regional Climate center showing the average date of the first tornado warnings around the nation. How's your calendar for May 12 look?

Minnesota is one of those places where weather is literally life-threatening about 30 days a year. We've already logged several of those days with life-threatening wind chills, snowstorms and blizzards this year. How about spending another quality hour or two under tornado warnings this summer? At least we're far better off than some areas to the south that spend the equivalent of days each year under imminent tornado threat.

 Land of gentle rains? 

My MPR colleague Mark Seeley tells me the data clearly shows Minnesota has observed and increase in extreme rainfall events in the past 30 years.

But what is an '"average rainfall" in Minnesota? This map suggests about a quarter of an inch for central and southern Minnesota, compared to .66 inch for the typical Gulf Coast cloudburst.

Thursday is tornado drill day in Minnesota. Here's the schedule -- and sirens in most communities will sound at 1:45 p.m. and 6:55 p.m.