3″ hail and wind damage up north

It's a loud and bumpy night across northern Minnesota. Severe storms reports are flying into NWS from northern Minnesota.

  • 6 W Roseau [Roseau Co, MN] PUBLIC reports HAIL of teacup size (M3.00 INCH) at 5:30 PM CDT -- RULER MEASURED 3.5 INCH HAIL

  • 6 N Badger [Roseau Co, MN] PUBLIC reports HAIL of baseball size (M2.75 INCH) at 5:15 PM CDT --

  • 5 SSE Thief River Falls [Pennington Co, MN] EMERGENCY MNGR reports TSTM WND DMG at 5:20 PM CDT -- SEVERAL GRAIN BINS SUSTAINED SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. WIND SPEEDS ESTIMATED IN EXCESS OF 80 MPH.

Scattered storms rumble south and east overnight. Some of the storms will be severe with high winds and hail. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has pasted a severe thunderstorm watch across a big chunk of northern Minnesota.

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NOAA

URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH NUMBER 485

NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

335 PM CDT WED AUG 12 2015

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF NORTHERN MINNESOTA NORTHEAST NORTH DAKOTA

* EFFECTIVE THIS WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 335 PM UNTIL 1100 PM CDT.

* PRIMARY THREATS INCLUDE...ISOLATED VERY LARGE HAIL EVENTS TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER POSSIBLE ISOLATED DAMAGING WIND GUSTS TO 70 MPH POSSIBLE

SUMMARY...THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE IN COVERAGE AND INTENSITY THIS AFTERNOON INTO EVENING WITH ACTIVITY SPREADING SOUTHEAST ACROSS THE WATCH AREA. LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING OUTFLOW WINDS WILL BE THE PRIMARY HAZARDS WITH THE MOST INTENSE STORMS.

The storms will gradually drift and develop south and east overnight, and could make it as far as the Twin Cities metro by morning.

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You can track the warnings and storm reports here.

Better yet, keep your NOAA weather radio on alert mode tonight. If Mark Trail approves how can you be wrong?

mtrail
NOAA

Here's a reminder on how you can use NOAA's Specific Area Messaging Technology (SAME) to program most weather radios to alert only to your area.

After buying an NWR SAME receiver, you must program your county, parish, independent city or marine area into the radio. Do NOT program your radio for a louder or clearer station not designated as a SAME channel. You will not receive alerts.Once programmed, your NWR will then alert you only of weather and other emergencies for the county(s)/ area(s) you chose. NWR receivers with SAME, alert for emergencies anywhere within the coverage area of the NWR transmitter, typically several counties, even though the emergency could be well away from the listener.

  • When an NWS office broadcasts a warning, watch or non-weather emergency, it also broadcasts a digital SAME code that may be heard as a very brief static burst, depending on the characteristics of the receiver. This SAME code contains the type of message, county(s) affected, and message expiration time.

  • A programmed NWR SAME receiver will turn on for that message, with the listener hearing the 1050 Hz warning alarm tone as an attention signal, followed by the broadcast message.

  • At the end of the broadcast message, listeners will hear a brief digital end-of-message static burst followed by a resumption of the NWR broadcast cycle.

Heat builds next 72 hours

You'll notice the heat and humidity on the rise. The big heat pump high over the Rockies tips eastward into the Upper Midwest as we approach the weekend. The so-called "four-corners high" is the mechanism that drives the North American monsoon to produce precious summer rainfall in places like Tucson. When it spills east in late summer, Minnesota gets hot. Here's a look at the 500 millibar upper air chart for Saturday morning.

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GrADS: COLA/IGES

I'm becoming more convinced we'll add to our paltry (yet delightful) total of just two 90 degree days so far at MSP this summer by Saturday. In fact, the weekend frontal system has slowed as usual, meaning the set up for Saturday is ideal for busting out some 90-degree and higher temperatures Saturday afternoon. The GFS data below may be a tad aggressive, but 90 is a real possibility in the metro Thursday through Saturday.

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NOAA

Three-part forecast

Wednesday marked the 25th of the past 26 days with highs in the 80s at MSP Airport. That kind of temperature stability is rare in these parts, and it won't last another week. The forecast for the next week basically breaks down into three parts. Steamy, free air conditioning, and potentially monsoonal.

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Weatherspark - Euro model

Long range: Tropical deluge?

Both the GFS and European Models are painting a rather strong stalled low-pressure wave over southern Minnesota by late next Wednesday. With tropical moisture around, the notion of torrential rainfall is a possibility. Keep this in mind though, pinpointing areas of heavy/flooding rainfall is difficult hours in advance, and nearly impossible days in advance. With that caveat, here's the GFS notion of a big rain bull's eye over southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin next Wednesday night.

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NOAA

Weather eye candy

I worked some amazing storms, sunsets and lighting shows during nine years as chief meteorologist for the ABC affiliate in Tucson, Arizona. This shot captured last weekend just a couple miles west of my former home in Oro Valley, a remarkable image of lightning and a rainbow with a saguaro for balance.

Nice shot Greg!

Speaking of eye candy, we've had some of the most amazing sunsets in Minnesota lately. Sunday night's sunset may have been the best I've seen in 10 years since Tucson. Here's my perspective from a boat cruising with good friends on Robinson's Bay on Lake Minnetonka Sunday evening. Nothing short of spectacular. Another vote for best summer ever?

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Summer sunset on Lake Minnetonka. Paul Huttner/MPR News

Make a wish: Perseid peak tonight

If you can escape the clouds from scattered storms overnight, check out the peak of the Perseid meteor shower into the pre-dawn hours early Thursday morning.