Spring pattern locks in; Tornado drill Thursday

It's on.

Another Minnesota "warm season" has arrived. A pristine Ralph Lauren spring-blue sky hung over Minnesota Tuesday. Buds are bursting everywhere near the Weather Lab these days.

I can't rule out another chilly blustery rainy day or two, but the overall pattern looks solid for milder than average springlike weather for at least the next two weeks. By then May is knocking at the door.

Yes weather fans, it appears spring is here to stay.

• 71 degrees high at MSP Airport Wednesday (5:39 pm)

• Warmest day in 5 months since November 3rd (also 71 at MSP)

• Smoke from Kansas fires drifts overhead Thursday

• 8:00 pm sunset time in the Twin Cities Saturday through August 26th.

• American Robins sitting on lawns - April phenology notes from Minnesota Weatherguide Calendar.

• Statewide tornado drill in Minnesota Thursday

Tornado drill Thursday

Because what fine spring day would be complete without thinking about the inevitable threat of severe weather?

You'll hear the sirens wail (again) Thursday. Remember sirens are designed as an outdoor warning system. A first alert if you are unplugged and outside. The reality is a siren should never surprise you. We preach situational awareness hours, even days in advance. Outlooks. Watches. Warnings. Multiple safety nets like NOAA Weather Radio, FEMA alerts on your smartphone, even old fashioned TV and radio warnings save lives. Stay ahead of the storm threat and you're much less likely to be surprised.

Here's the rundown on severe weather awareness week in Minnesota and Wisconsin from The Twin Cities NWS.

Joplin Missouri tornado: A tragic study in "optimism bias"

"It will never happen to me right?" "That's just something we see on the news."  "The sirens are always going off and nothing happens."

Those are some of the reactions Joplin, Missouri residents had as a devastating EF5 tornado bore down on them in May of 2011. Later that year I wrote about how people in the path of the Joplin tornado ignored multiple warnings signals before taking action. That probably factored in many of the 100-plus lives lost that day in Joplin.

Some excerpts from my Updraft piece on optimism bias in the Joplin tornado.

“On May 22, 2011, one of the deadliest tornadoes in United States history struck Joplin, Missouri, directly killing 159 people and injuring over 1,000. The tornado, rated EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with maximum winds over 200 mph, affected a significant part of a city with a population of more than 50,000 and a population density near 1,500 people per square mile. As a result, the Joplin tornado was the first single tornado in the United States to result in over 100 fatalities since the Flint, Michigan, tornado of June 8, 1953.”

“The vast majority of Joplin residents did not immediately take protective action upon receiving a first indication of risk (usually via the local siren system), regardless of the source of the warning. Most chose to further assess their risk by waiting for, actively seeking, and filtering additional information.

Instead, the majority of Joplin residents did not take protective action until processing additional credible confirmation of the threat and its magnitude from a non-routine, extraordinary risk trigger. This was generally achieved in different ways, including physical observation of the tornado, seeing or hearing confirmation, and urgency of the threat on radio or television, and/or hearing a second, non-routine siren alert.

Interviews showed aspects of worldview that influenced risk perception and warning response included: previous experiences with tornadoes, apathy, familiarity with seasonal weather patterns in southwest Missouri, optimism bias, perceived frequency of siren activation in Joplin, social networks as mechanisms for warning dissemination, avid fear of tornadoes, and the number of deadly tornadoes earlier in the year.”

Forecast: More May than April

Warm southerly breezes kick up Thursday across Minnesota. Slow moving low pressure stalls with needed showers in the Dakotas the next few days. The result for Minnesota on the drier side of the system? A persistent mild southerly breeze and temperature turbo-boost.

All systems are go for another strong temperature push Thursday afternoon. Mid 70s in the metro seem likely. Thermometers push 80 degrees in western Minnesota. 60s surge all the way north to the Canadian border.

The forecast breakdown focuses on warm temperatures, and increasingly gusty south winds Thursday and Friday.

Weather Note: Water temperatures in ice-free lakes are still frigid. Hypothermia is an instant danger for anyone who ends up in water in Minnesota even in milder air temperatures. Please respect the still dangerously cold lakes this week as the weather warms.

Kansas fires smoke moves north

You may notice a pasty white tinted sky over Minnesota and some vivid red sunsets. Smoke from the massive Kansas fires is drifting north into Minnesota.

Ice Out moves north again

The warmer weather and gusty winds will star to do a number on ice in central and northern Minnesota in the next few days. Here's a great view of Minnesota from space from from NASA's MODIS Terra 1,000 meter resolution shot Wednesday. You can clearly see the ice out boundary working through central Minnesota lakes.

Accuweather launches questionable 90-Day forecast

I'll be kind here. Almost all weather experts agree there is zero demonstrably credible day to day weather forecast skill after about 2 to 3 weeks at most. A specific daily 90-day forecast? Might as well open up the Old Farmer's Almanac.

Several meteorologists around the country are chiming in about Accuweather's attempted 90-day forecast product. In my opinion this is the equivalent of meteorological malpractice. It's an obvious attempted attention grab that sadly casts a bad light on the profession of meteorology. Most of us work very hard to build and maintain forecast credibility, and explain the limits of weather forecasting to our audience as the state of the science stands today. This type of irresponsible forecast reaching damages our profession in my opinion.

More on the story here from NPR here.

Jason Samenow from The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang adds this perspective.

The leading minds in meteorology say weather forecasts aren’t reliable more than seven to 10 days out. Yet AccuWeather, is — more than ever — defying what science says is the limit of useful weather forecasting.

In recent days, AccuWeather added forecasts extending 90 days into the future on its website, doubling the amount of time into the future for which the State College, Pa.-based company provides predictions.

But valuable forecasts so far into the future simply aren’t possible, many scientists with expertise in weather prediction say. I asked three leading meteorologists, who hold doctoral degrees, what the limit of reliable weather forecasts are and they all responded with essentially the same answer — 7-10 days:

For detailed, specific forecasts that are better than “average,” the limit is generally just over a week. However, in some situations, skillful forecasts can be obtained out to 2 weeks, but this is rare. — Gary M. Lackmann, professor of atmospheric sciences, North Carolina State University.

Meteorologists generally have excellent skill the first two days, good skill days 3-4, useful skill for days 5-6. Skill fades rapidly after 7 days, but increasingly we are situations in which the model made excellent forecasts 6-8 days out… — Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences, University of Washington.

On average, predictability is just 10-20 minutes for a tornado, a few days for a winter storm, and 7-10 days for general weather pattern change (i.e., turning warmer over the eastern U.S.). Beyond this 8-10 day time frame, changes in daily weather are very difficult to forecast. — David Novak, director of the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center

(Note: I did not mention AccuWeather’s forecasts when querying these experts.)

And meteorologist Patrick Ellis from WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina adds this.

Accuracy in forecast within three days of the initial forecast; with an 85 percent probability of the forecast being right. Between three and seven days, accuracy does diminish, to around 60 percent. But the further out you get from the initialization point of a model, the data gets blurrier and blurrier.

Large scale pattern can be well modeled during this 16 day period, but sensible weather is hard to pinpoint much after seven days due to the volatility of the science. 

In August 2013, Accuweather, a private weather forecasting company, introduced a 45 day forecast product. This was met with some controversy in the weather enterprise. Recently, Accuweather unveiled a new 90 day forecast product.

With the limitations of the science, namely in sensible weather forecasting, how can this be? The longest range synoptic model only goes out 16 days and even that is sketchy at best. 

Many in the weather community has criticized this move because it lacks transparency of the data sources and could be a disservice. 

The issue is, there is a market for these long range forecasts. 

People who want to plan weddings, plan trips or just general curiosity, the market exists. Most people see these and realize to take it with a grain of salt; others could take it to heart and make major decisions based off these wildly variable forecasts.