Smokin’ hot again Saturday, storm chances Sunday

Evacuate to the nearest beach. Or your local Dairy Queen.

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The hottest spell of 2015 continues Saturday. Our mini 2-day heat wave produced heat index values of 100 degrees at MSP Airport and several other Minnesota locations Friday afternoon. Friday was the hottest day of the year so far in the metro and most other Minnesota locations.

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  • 94 degrees - high temperature at MSP Airport Friday (3:09 thru 3:12 pm)

  • 72 degree dew point at MSP Friday

  • 100 degrees - heat index at MSP Friday

  • 3rd day at or above 90 degrees at MSP so far this summer

  • 11 days on average at or above 90 degrees each year at MSP Airport

Yes we're running behind average on 90 degree days this summer. But it's interesting to note that overall summer temperatures are very close to average for June, July and August. Overall we've enjoyed a blissfully average summer for temperatures, without extreme heat spikes. Here's a look at the number of 90 degree days before our current heat spell. By Saturday afternoon we'll update these totals to 4 days of 90+ in the metro.

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We turn some hot numbers again Saturday, temps Saturday afternoon push into the 90s once again across most of Minnesota.

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NOAA

The inbound front triggers scattered storms by Sunday afternoon and evening.

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NOAA

The advancing front triggers a slight risk of severe storms in the Red River Valley Saturday.

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NOAA

Sunday's frontal position favors showers and a few severe T-Storms across southern Minnesota.

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Sunday's cool front also brings relief form the extreme heat and humidity by Monday. Will this mini heat wave end up as the hottest spell of 2015? Probably.

Heavy rainfall potential next Tuesday?

Yes, it's still along way off. But I'm still watching the potential for heavy, multi-inch rainfall somewhere across Minnesota next Tuesday.

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Weatherspark- Euro Output

Several major forecast models are painting a slow moving low pressure system over Minnesota Tuesday. Here's the GFS version of events.

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NOAA

Two to three inch rainfall totals are showing up in the 7-day progs from NOAA's Weather Prediction Center.

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NOAA

Stay tuned on this one. Another major free lawn watering, with some big gully-washers could be on the way.

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Uber-Mega-Jurassic-Godzilla El Nino ramps up

Some of you tell me the overstated pop culture breathless weather related news coverage can get a little old at times. Everyone is a meteorologist these days it seems. Every day a new cheesy contrived name to hype the next big weather event. I celebrate that weather science has become the favorite content driver of the media masses. Alas, I digress.

For several months I've been writing that this blooming El Nino will likely be the strongest on record. This week NOAA has come out with data that confirms what many climate watchers have been talking about for months. The current El Nino event shows every sign of challenging the strongest events on record.

Watch the growing ribbon of Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures (SST's) anomalies pushing +2C to +3C in the tropical Pacific.

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NOAA

Here's one excerpt from Huffpost.

Federal meteorologists say the current El Niño is already the second strongest on record for this time of year and could be one of the most potent weather changers of the past 65 years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded unusual warmth in the Pacific Ocean in the last three months. El Niño is a heating of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide, mostly affecting the United States in winter. “This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the Los Angeles Times. “Everything now is going to the right way for El Niño. If this lives up to its potential, this thing can bring a lot of floods, mudslides and mayhem.” NOAA's Mike Halpert said Thursday the current El Niño likely will rival past super El Niños in 1997-1998, 1982-83 and 1972-73. The most recent El Niño, beginning in 1997, caused the second-warmest and seventh-wettest winter since record keeping began in 1895. Weather around the country turned extreme, and severe flooding, ice storms and tornados raged from California to Florida. "It looks like it will be one of the three or four strongest events on record," Halpert, the deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center, said Thursday on a media conference call. "Whether it matters if it's 1, 2, 3 or 4 is debatable." El Niño usually brings heavy winter rain to much of the Southern and Eastern U.S., and to California. Some are hopeful the rain could help quench the dry state, which has suffered through four long years of drought. But many scientists are cautioning a weary public about the hope of a rain-coated silver bullet.  The New York Times notes that even if El Niño were to bring huge amounts of rain, Central and Northern California, which supply much of the state's water demand, often don't benefit from the weather phenomenon. Most of the precipitation tends to fall on Southern California,which can suffer heavily from floods.

Stay tuned as the real effects of this Super El Nino unfold in fall and winter. The geeks are taking over at The Weather Channel This could be a good trend. For years the Weather Channel has steered away from core weather programming in favor of loosely related weather drama shows. For years I've fought the good fight trying to convince broadcast executives that weather sells. Some get it and have reaped big rewards, some still do not. A smart, detailed approach to weather programming that brings a weather hungry audience along for the ride has always worked in every market I've worked in. My forecast for the Weather Channel? Higher ratings.

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The Weather Channel

Here's more in the Weather Channel's new show Weather Underground TV from Andrew Freedman at Mashable.

The geeks are back at the Weather Channel, and they're ready to return the network to its nerdy roots. That's the message the network is sending with the new show, "Weather Underground TV," which will air five nights a week from six to eight p.m. eastern time, beginning on August 24.

The network hopes there are enough weather geeks out there to justify the move and give them a ratings bump, after a long-term ratings decline and recent plateau in prime time viewership. This move comes as the network sees its audience increasingly turning to the Internet for weather information, including the company's own apps.

“We had a view and still have a view that in this day and age… you have to be exceptional in one thing,” says David Clark, president of the Weather Company's TV division, in an interview with Mashable.

In addition, the Weather Channel's highly publicized disputes with cable and satellite providers like DirectTV has demonstrated that the network is not as indispensable as it once was.

With the launch of a weekday evening show dedicated to the brand's Weather Underground website, the station is shifting its programming strategy to woo back its former core audience of weather enthusiasts.