Milder Pacific air surges in

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Morning Twin Cities upper air sounding shows warm air (red line) surging in above 2,000 feet.

This is an interesting day to be a weather forecaster.

If you look at the upper air profile from this morning's weather balloon launch at Chanhassen, you can see why. Follow the red line from the bottom up. That's the temperature. Warmer is to the right, colder to the left. Notice how the temperature climbs dramatically right above the bottom of the graphic?

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That's our temperature inversion. It's much warmer just 2,000 to 5,000 feet above our heads (may approach 50 degrees today) than it is at ground level. But enough forecasting 101.

The bottom line is we started out about 15 degrees warmer this morning that yesterday. The warmest air in quite sometime is filtering in to Minnesota today. The big forecast question revolves around when the fog and stratus will break up today. How much sun will we get, and how soon. All things considered it looks like we'll break into sunshine as the day wears on. That should be enough to boost temperatures into at least the lower 30s.

There is a "bust potential" on the high side today. If everything goes right, we could see a surge to near 40 in some areas of southern Minnesota today.

The overall weather pattern reamins favorable for much warmer than average temperatures through next week. Daytime highs in the 30s will be common. The biggest departure from average will occur in our overnight lows. Lows in the 20s and high teems will be way above our average low of 5 degrees in the metro over the next week.

No big arctic outbreaks are lurking around the corner in the next 10 days.

Winter Olympics: Snow wanted

It was 56 in Vancouver, BC yesterday. The average high is 43. While the Olympic ski venues are inland and higher, warm air and rain, yes rain, has forced closure of some of the Olympic free-style ski and snowboard venues. The high was 37 in Whistler yesterday.

They are stockpiling snow under tarps to try and maintain it for the Olympic events. There is bare ground on some of the ski slopes. That's a potential nightmare for Olympic officials.

The good news in the forecast is, it looks colder with a chance of snow in about a week.

PH