Welcome to June: BWCA thunder, record warmth
Now I've seen everything.
Lightning strikes with thunderstorms moving into the BWCA at 7:45 am on March 8th?
Today's weather is like a bad episode of Twilight Zone.
I fully expect Rod Serling to walk into the Weather Lab with his trademark white shirt, thin black tie and cigarette blazing to deliver the preamble.
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"Portrait of a weatherman who's losing his already tenuous grip on reality. His weather maps no longer reflect the standard weather reality. Something in the earth's axis or climate system has shifted, and seasons produce oddly different weather. File it under science fact...in the Twilight Zone."
Record 'warm minimums' this morning
The Twin Cities didn't just break another warm temperature record this morning. We smashed it. Often records are broken by 1, 2, or 3 degrees. This morning we blasted the previous record warm overnight minimum out of the water by 7 degrees. Many locations in Minnesota will come in with records today.
54 degrees minimum temperature at MSP Airport
47 degrees previous record 'warm minimum' set in 1878
21 degrees average low temperature for March 8th at MSP Airport
+33 degrees vs. average this morning in the Twin Cities
June 1st date average low reaches 54 degrees at MSP
A low temperature of 54 degrees? Welcome to June 1st. The "official" record may not stand if the mercury falls below 47 by midnight.
The record high of 69 degrees is in reach today if the inbound dry slot delivers enough sunny hours around midday today. The maps look more like late May.
Minor reality check
Low pressure and a cool front swing through Minnesota today. But even cool fronts this year are like the children of Lake Wobegon; above average. High pressure returns temperature to about 10 degrees above average for the next 48 hours.
Temperatures reach the upper 40s and low 50s tomorrow and Thursday. Southerly winds and sunshine return by Friday, as temperatures make another unseasonable run at 60 degrees.
60s again next week - cooler after that?
Temperatures look to reach the 60s again next week in most of southern Minnesota. Next Monday's upper air chart shows the jet stream still gone well north into Canada with a mild southwest flow over the Upper Midwest.
After that, there are signs of a cool down. There is always the potential for one more (slushy) shoe to drop this spring. It is still March. NOAA's 16 day GFS output shows cooler temps, but this product has a tendency to back off longer range cold over time. We'll see.
Stay tuned.