Severe risk grows, National Climate Assessment highlights Minnesota impacts

Fire up the Doppler.

It looks like your local radar will glow with pretty colors at times in the next 48 hours as our Midwest low pressure wave rides north.

Round one already delivered rain, wind and hail to southeast Minnesota this morning. The La Crosse, Wisconsin, National Weather Service office tracked the "hailers" as a small bow echo rolled through southeast Minnesota.

Morning coffee, with hail. Here are a few select hail reports from the La Crosse NWS from this morning.

• Hayfield [Dodge Co, MN] BROADCAST MEDIA reports HAIL of golf ball size (M1.75 INCH) at 7:15 AM CDT -- REPORTED BY A KTTC VIEWER

• Rochester [Olmsted Co, MN] BROADCAST MEDIA reports HAIL of pea size (M0.25 INCH) at 7:12 AM CDT -- KTTC

• Christie [Clark Co, WI] LAW ENFORCEMENT reports HAIL of nickel size (E0.88 INCH) at 6:42 AM CDT -- HAIL COVERING THE GROUND 2 INCHES DEEP. MAINLY PEA TO NICKEL IN SIZE.

The culprit for our increase in storm coverage through Thursday is a potent warm front and low pressure storm moving north.

Much of today may feature a break in storms. The warm front may fire another wave of strong to possibly severe storms by this evening. That one could ride north into the Twin Cities with the potential for hail and high winds tonight.

Here's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's  experimental High Resolution Rapid Refresh radar output showing the notion of a cluster of strong storms developing just southwest of the metro by around 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. tonight.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center continues to hold much of Minnesota in a slight risk for severe storms through today and tonight. The primary threats with storms through tonight are large hail and high winds.

Tonight's probable wave of frisky thunderstorms may be just the opening act. As the low and warm front ride north Thursday, southern Minnesota and the metro work into the "warm sector" on the southeast side of the warm front tomorrow afternoon.

That puts the Twin Cities, southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin in a favorable area for severe storms -- and potentially tornadoes.

I'll be keeping a close eye on developments Thursday.

• Keep an eye on the latest updates for watches and warnings from the Twin Cities NWS.

• Here's the current Twin Cities radar loop from Weather Underground.

The science of tornado forecasting and warning is usually an hour by hour, minute by minute process. I can't say for sure tornadoes will form in Minnesota Thursday, but the threat is there. Stay "situationally aware" through tomorrow!

National Climate Assessment highlights Minnesota impacts

My road to climate change understanding was a long one. From 1994 to 1996 I was working the early end of the clock as the meteorologist for the debut years of the WGN Morning News.

After 3 a.m. got a wee bit early for me, I accepted a prime time weather gig inn 1997 and moved to Arizona. I expected to see a different side of weather at a more southerly latitude.

What I didn't expect was to live in a "marginal climate zone" where small shifts in climate and weather patterns produce huge landscape changes. Over the next nine years I watched and reported on astounding changes shifting rain and snow patterns and drought lead to a massive increase in fires which torched millions of acres of prime forest in Arizona's mountains.

I was live on the air during the ferocious Aspen Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson when a firestorm swept through the town of Summerhaven, and burned it to the ground.

The day before my news director asked me about the prospects for a small fire that had started a few miles southwest of the town. I said simply: "That fire is in a bad spot for Summerhaven."

My former KGUN9 colleague reporter Craig Smith shows what it's like to live in a very different looking Summerhaven more than 10 years later.

When I returned to Minnesota to work for WCCO-TV and eventually MPR News in 2006 and 2007, I could see weather and climate changes similar I observed in Arizona happening here.

That's one reason I started Climate Cast with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit early in 2013. The evolving nature of climate science demanded a forum to highlight the latest science that seems to be rolling out on a weekly, if not daily basis.

I'm happy we're doing this on the radio each week to keep MPR listeners up to date on the latest breaking climate science.

I'm stunned to be told by contacts at the Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media that we appear to be the only major broadcast radio or TV outlet in the nation doing a regular weekly show on climate change science. You would think that more relevant broadcast media outlets would have latched on to the growing and real impacts of climate change by now.

This week's release of the third National Climate Assessment continues to highlight the changes we've been talking about on Climate Cast. Minnesota and The Upper Midwest continues to be one of the places warming faster than other areas of the U.S.

Here are some of the major highlights for the Midwest and Minnesota from the report. Sound familiar?

Regional Findings of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment: MIDWEST

• “In the next few decades, longer growing seasons and rising carbon dioxide levels will increase yields of some crops, though those benefits will be progressively offset by extreme weather events. Though adaptation options can reduce some of the detrimental effects, in the long term, the combined stresses associated with climate change are expected to decrease agricultural productivity.

• The composition of the region’s forests is expected to change as rising temperatures drive habitats for many tree species northward. The role of the region’s forests as a net absorber of carbon is at risk from disruptions to forest ecosystems, in part due to climate change.

• Increased heat wave intensity and frequency, increased humidity, degraded air quality, and reduced water quality will increase public health risks.

• The Midwest has a highly energy-intensive economy with per capita emissions of greenhouse gases more than 20% higher than the national average. The region also has a large and increasingly utilized potential to reduce emissions that cause climate change.

• Extreme rainfall events and flooding have increased during the last century, and these trends are expected to continue, causing erosion, declining water quality, and negative impacts on transportation, agriculture, human health, and infrastructure.

• Climate change will exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes, including changes in the range and distribution of certain fish species, increased invasive species and harmful blooms of algae, and declining beach health. Ice cover declines will lengthen the commercial navigation season.” (NCA, Ch. 18: Midwest)

Here's another view of the NCA highlighting national and Midwest effects from Climate Central.

The Midwest is one of the fastest-warming regions of the country since 1970, particularly during the winter. That’s helped reduce energy needs in the winter while increasing them in the summer. Winter warming has also led to a 71 percent decline in Great Lake ice coverage from 1973-2010.

However, summer warming will be a big concern by mid-century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Parts of the region could see 25 more days above 95°F while also seeing a longer growing season. And while a longer growing season would be a good thing, the NCA notes that extreme weather events are likely to have greater influence on future crop yields.

The report cites early heat in spring 2012 followed by a cold snap that cost Michigan cherry growers $60 million in crop losses. Heat waves during pollination time for corn and soy are also likely to decrease yields.

Some good news? Minnesota is one of the locations that's already started to embrace adaption plans for our observed and expected future changes in climate.

The scary part of climate change is that we may just be at the cusp, the very beginning of more dramatic changes in the coming years and decades. That's why we'll keep talking about the latest climate science with an eye toward solutions, and how we may all need to adapt on Climate Cast.