Rain gives way to weekend sun, Hurricane warning for New Orleans

Another soaker

Welcome to the latest wave of rain across the Upper Midwest. This system will lacks the prolific, multi-inch rainfall totals we saw last Monday. But I expect another good soaking for most of southern Minnesota, with lighter totals tot he north.

Double-feature

Our latest rain system comes in two parts. The first wave rolled through as expected Friday afternoon. The second wave arrives late Friday night into Saturday morning. Skies should clear as the sun returns Saturday afternoon. Sunday looks downright gorgeous. NOAA's NAM 12 km resolution model captures the trend of two distinct rain waves with clearing Saturday PM.

Warming trend

The sun pokes out Saturday afternoon across most of Minnesota. Sunday is the sunnier, warmer day this weekend. Temps could push 70 in the Twin Cities. Here's a look at high temperatures across the Upper Midwest Saturday. It's still summer in Chicago.

Classic October next week

Next week looks typical for the second week in October. Highs in the 50s north and 60s south are likely. Widespread frost looks likely north and west of the Twin Cities next Tuesday morning. It looks like most of the Twin Cities will probably escape frost next week, but the north metro suburbs could get nipped Tuesday morning.

Fall color peak

Fall color is now at or near peak across much of Minnesota.

Nate eyes NOLA

I had a feeling New Orleans would not escape the insanity of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Nate will likely reach hurricane intensity overnight. Nate is gaining strength over favorably warm waters as he spins north into the Gulf of Mexico.

Track guidance for Nate is remarkably tight. The official NHC cone is relatively narrow, and takes Nate close to New Orleans Sunday.

Hurricane and surge warnings

I'm always concerned about storm surge and New Orleans. An east wind ahead of an approaching hurricane driving a few feet of surge can be a real problem for the low-lying coastal geography.

2017: Costly year for billion-dollar weather disasters

2017 has already produced 15 billion-dollar weather disasters so far. Here's a great write up from NOAA on how they are calculated.

Not including hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, 35 tropical cyclones have caused at least $583.5 billion in total damages—with an average of $16.7 billion per event. Accounting for just under a fifth (17 percent) of the total number of events, tropical cyclones have caused almost half (47 percent) of the total damages attributed to billion-dollar weather and climate disasters since 1980. These numbers will dramatically rise once the 2017 hurricanes costs are included.

Following tropical cyclones, the most costly event types are:

2. Drought, with an average cost of $9.4 billion per event

4. Flooding, with an average cost of $4.3 billion per event

6. Freezes, with an average cost of $3.4 billion per event

8. Winter storms, with an average cost of $3.1 billion per event

10. Wildfires, with an average cost of $2.5 billion per event

12. Severe storms, with an average cost of $2.2 billion per event

For more information on the distribution of damage from these billion-dollar disaster events, see our summary statistics.