Weekend Split: Plus – Working out Tornado drill cable-TV glitches

57 degrees high at MSP Airport Friday

61 degrees average high at MSP this weekend

50s for highs this weekend in most of Minnesota (40s north Saturday)

Grey showery Saturday for most of Minnesota

Snow showers possible just north & east of metro?

Sunday - the sunnier nicer day of the weekend

Not as warm next week as previously expected

A few glitches on Thursday's Statewide Tornado Drill (see below)

April lilacs at the Weather Lab

Photo credit: Paul Huttner-MPR News

Jekyll & Hyde weekend:

Which one was Jekyll, and who was Hyde anyway?

This weekend's weather features a split personality for Minnesota.

The next wave of low pressure is an almost Alberta Clipper like system zipping through Saturday. A cool rain slides over Minnesota Saturday...cool enough that some of it may fall as snow showers just north & east of the metro. (And I can't rule out a few stray flakes in the metro Saturday!)

Overall rainfall totals look light...with most areas tallying between .15" and .40" again, but heavier totals over .50" are possible for Brainerd, the Iron Range cities and Duluth..

Source: NOAA/wxcaster.com

A few inches of wet snow is also likely on the Iron Range Saturday night.

Source: Duluth NWS

Slow improvement Sunday:

Sunday does look liek the sunnier nicer day this weekend of r that bike ride or long brisk springtime walk. But I'm not rushing the clearing. It may take a few hours for the sun to come out in some areas Sunday.

Highs will be cool, probably in the upper 50s in most areas, but may tickle 60 in southern Minnesota.

Source: NOAA/NWS

All in all a decent, but seasonably cool end to the weekend.

Not as warm next week?

The models zigged instead of a zagged for next week.

What looked like a pattern that could produce a string of 70s and maybe even an 80 degree day has shifted.

It now appears that low pressure may drift further south next week, and that may drag the nose of a cooler Canadian air mass south over Minnesota.

Instead of 70s and a shot at 80, it looks like we may peak in the low 70s Tuesday, then cool back through the 60s later next week.

Source: Iowa State University

Stay tuned, this pattern is "highly amplified" and "progressive." Translation? A lot can still change by next week.

Image credit: NOAA

Tornado Drill glitches: This is why we do them!

Overall Thursday's statewide tornado drill went off pretty smoothly. It appears the NWS, local emergency managers and most of the media were firing on all cylinders.

But there were a few glitches on the cable TV end of things.

It appears the test "warnings" ran a little long at Comcast Cable Thursday evening.

Here are the details I received from Todd Krause at the Twin Cities NWS office.

We used the TOR code on KEC-65 and all our other NOAA Weather Radios in the Chanhassen area. This was at about 657 pm, and we had a 15 minute expiration on it. Comcast chose to run it at 657 pm (note that stations/cable need not run any of our warnings), then somehow it kept on repeating every 5-15 minutes, long after our test warning had ended. The warning was removed from our playlist on KEC-65 at 715 pm. But it kept on getting repeated until shortly before 9 pm and we were inundated with calls. We talked with one of the top guys with Comcast around 8 pm, and he seemed to think this was just in the southwest suburbs. He gave the order to his people to get it stopped, which eventually happened.

You may have also been called by people, which is why I'm letting you know what happened, just in case you have to explain it. Thanks.

Todd

No finger pointing here. This is exactly why we do these drills. The severe weather warning system in Minnesota has a lot of moving parts. It's good to get the bugs worked out ahead of time...before the real thing hits.

Have a great weekend!

PH