California burning, Minnesota weather perfection

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Cal Fire TV

A series of large fires continues to burn in the west today, and the effects of 4 years of drought are making California the epicenter of extreme fire behavior.

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Cal Fire

The most erratic blaze is the highly volatile Rocky Fire north of San Francisco. The 62,000 acre blaze jumped containment Monday in several spots and has torched two dozen homes and other buildings. 13,000 residents are in the evacuation zone.

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Cal Fire

Here's Monday's update from Cal Fire.

Eternal fire season

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The term 'fire season' in California has been a running joke for the past several years. The state continues to suffer through the worst drought in as many as 1,100 years by some estimates.

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USDA/UNL

Climate shifts in recent decades mean fires now rage in nearly all months of the year. Some additional perspective from the Christian Science Monitor.

“California’s drought continues to cause wildfire activity to remain much higher than normal,” CAL FIRE reported. “In 2014, CAL FIRE responded to 1,000 more wildfires than in an average year and sadly that trend has continued well into 2015.”

Matt Jolly, a US Forest Service ecologist at the Fire Science Laboratory, told the Christian Science Monitor's Pete Spotts a global analysis of daily fire-weather conditions between 1979 and 2013 indicates that climate change is causing more regions of the country to experience longer wildfire seasons. Of the three factors that contribute to wildfires – weather conditions, fuel, and sources of ignition – “weather is the thing that we’re not going to have control over. So we have to focus on the other two aspects if we’re going to adapt,” Dr. Jolly said.

The study, which Jolly led and which appears in the current issue of Nature Communications, found that over the 35-year period fire seasons extended by an average of 18.4 percent, or four days – growing by as much as nine days in North American conifer forests and 33 days in South American tropical and subtropical forests, grasslands, and savannahs.

Additionally, "averaged around the world, the area of vegetated landscapes affected by longer wildfire seasons grew by 108 percent."

“California’s drought continues to cause wildfire activity to remain much higher than normal,” CAL FIRE reported. “In 2014, CAL FIRE responded to 1,000 more wildfires than in an average year and sadly that trend has continued well into 2015.”

NASA's MODIS Aqua satellite captured this image of the fires and smoke plumes in northern California Monday.

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NASA

The next seven days offers little hope for meaningful rains in the California fire zone.

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NOAA

Minnesota weather nice

Our weather couldn't be nicer by comparison. We've enjoyed abundant sunshine and rainfall this summer. Today brings another carbon copy perfect weather day, and a great looking forecast for National Night Out.

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Weatherspark- NOAA GFS data

It was just two years ago a wicked $1.25 billion hail and wind storm tore through central Minnesota and the Twin Cities on National Night Out. An intense supercell blew up in western Minnesota and made a beeline for the Twin Cities metro.

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Twin Cities NWS

Doppler radar showed persistent hail tracks as large hail cores produced numerous 2 inches-plus hail reports.

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Twin Cities NWS

Hail blew out windows in cars across the southwest metro, including this police car in Eden Prairie.

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Twin Cities NWS

I worked this storm for hours tracking it toward the Twin Cities metro live on MPR News. That is until the damaging gust front downed trees and took out power at the Weather Lab knocking me off the air in Deephaven that night. That forced a quick transition to storm reporter.

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Neighbors in Deephaven checking out large tree down. Paul Huttner/MPR News.

Here's more on that 2013 National Night Out storm from the Minnesota Climate Working Group.

Storm Event: August 6th 2013 National Night Out

After a long day of stable air over most of Minnesota, several storm events occured after a draping cold front from up north (associated with a low-pressure system from Hudson Bay) mixed up the atmosphere.

Although the formation of these event seemed tornadic at first, there were no confirmed tornadoes in Minnesota, however there were many confirmed reports of hail and high winds. Below, the Chanhassen National Weather Service Office wrote an article detailing an event.

On Tuesday afternoon, August 06 2013, a supercell thunderstorm moved across central Minnesota into western Wisconsin and produced a long swath of severe weather.

A supercell is a very strong thunderstorm that has a rotating updraft. They are able to sustain themselves for several hours, and produce large hail and damaging winds.

A radar loop shows the storm as it moved across the region. Numerous storm reports were received just south of the I-94 corridor. As the pictures below show, this storm caused extensive damage to crops and vehicles. Several storm spotters reported hail 2 inches or greater.

Tracking Thursday rains

The best chance for our next soaking rolls into Minnesota Thursday, and especially later Thursday night for the metro. Here's the next low pushing east.

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NOAA

Rainfall totals Thursday night could be impressive, with some 1 inch-plus totals possible by Friday morning.

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NOAA via Iowa State University

The North American Mesoscale Forecast System model is probably too aggressive with the notion of a swath of 2 inches-plus totals approaching the metro by Friday morning, but you get the idea that another wave of locally heavy downpours is possible.

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NOAA via wxcaster.com

Stay tuned.