Metro frost; Decent Halloween; Indian Summer ahead

The metro area escaped frost Thursday morning. A frosty start Friday looks like a slam dunk.

Wind and clouds kept surface temperatures just above freezing early Thursday. The mercury bottomed out at 35° early Thursday. That adds one more (albeit chilly) day to the 2010 metro growing season which began on May 9th.

If the first 32 degree reading at Twin Cities Airport occurs Friday morning as forecast, it will tie for the 9th latest 32 degree temperature occurrence in the Twin Cities on record.

Recipe for frost:

Weather conditions look ideal for frost Friday morning. Here's the recipe:

-Clear skies

-Light winds

-Daytime temps below 45°F

-Dew points in the 20s.

These conditions allow maximum "radiational cooling" to plunge temperatures below the freezing point in the early morning hours.

Locations that have not yet seen frost in southern Minnesota will see the season's first frost Friday morning. Prepare accordingly.

Improving Forecast:

The weather will mellow over the next week in Minnesota. The warming trend starts Friday as temperatures will recover into the 50s.

Paul's Weekend Forecast:

Friday: Frosty start, fine finish. Filtered sun through a few high clouds. High 53. Wind S-SW 5-15.

Saturday: Mixed sun & clouds. Cool. High 49. Wind NE 5-10.

Sunday: Mostly sunny. High near 50. Wind E 5-10.

Halloween Trick or Treatcast: Clear skies, light winds. Temps in the 40s. A solid 6 on a scale of 1 to 10!

Indian Summer next week?

Forecast models hint at a leaning ridge of high pressure builds in by the middle of next week. This should mean a gradual warming trend with cool nights and increasingly mild days. Temperatures should push the 60 degree mark in southern Minnesota by Wednesday, and that pattern could last into next weekend. That would put temperatures a good 12 degrees above average. Good enough in my book for Indian Summer after our first frost Friday.

Look for another dry, mild and quiet weather pattern by the middle of next week!

First big snow in sight??

It's wayyyy out in the medium range forecast models and could be pure fiction at this point...but the models are hinting at the potential for our first big snow in southern Minnesota the weekend of November 13-14.

GFS model hints at potential snow maker by November 13th. Possibly pure fiction that far out...but worth watching.

As we say in the weather biz...stay tuned.

My storm's bigger than your storm!

Check out this and this from the AMS blog. I guess our October Superbomb has some weather and climate gurus a little jealous. For the record, I don't see a case here for a lower barometer than this week's Minnesota Superstorm...and storms over open ocean don't count!

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Tuesday's "Octobomb" winds up over Minnesota.

Then of course there's that old joke about getting 10 meteorologists in a room and getting 13 different forecasts.

PH