Good sleeping weather, fine start Tuesday
Chamber of Commerce weather. Explore Minnesota would be proud.
After a showery start from the metro south, a fresh northwest breeze behind a cool front is funneling a beautifully less humid air mass into Minnesota. Dew points dropping into the comfy 50s. Lows in the 40s up north and mid 50s in the metro by morning. Crank open those windows and let the fresh breezes blow through.
It's a recipe for good sleeping weather.
Notice how the sticky 60 degree dew points we "enjoyed" over the weekend get pushed south of a Des Moines, Iowa-Madison, Wis., line early Tuesday morning.
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Tuesday's forecast starts dry for the metro and eastern Minnesota. Sunshine, a fresh air mass, tolerable humidity. Room temperature. Weather complaints department is closed for today.
Does it get any better than this?
Showers return late Tuesday
An active jet stream overhead keeps dealing low pressure systems of varying intensity our way every two to three days.
Showers roll into western Minnesota early Tuesday then track east. A tropical wave shoves more rain ashore into east Texas.
For the metro, our comfortable air mass lingers into Tuesday. Dew points climb again later this week back into the sticky upper 60s.
Shower chances favor Friday into Saturday morning at this point. The weekend is still a ways off and timing will probably change.
Stay tuned.
U.K. solar boom
Solar is booming in Europe, and the U.K. is now leading the way. One hundred times more solar power than just 15 years ago globally? Have we reached a renewable energy tipping point? Here's more from Climate Central.
A record amount of solar power was added to the world’s grids in 2014, pushing total cumulative capacity to 100 times the level it was in 2000.
Around 40GW of solar power was installed last year, meaning there is now a total of 178GW to meet world electricity demand, prompting renewable energy associations to claim that a tipping point has been reached that will allow rapid acceleration of the technology.
“For the first time ever in Europe, renewables produced more power than nuclear – and solar power was key in achieving this remarkable achievement,” said Michael Schmela, executive adviser to trade body SolarPower Europe, which compiled the statistics published on Tuesday.
Britain led the European solar expansion, with government incentives helping to add 2.4GW of solar resources to the domestic market, and a third to Europe’s overall 7GW of growth.