Summer weekend perfection? Weather hype hits a new level

Summer's finest?

This is as good as it gets Minnesota.

We earn our summers in Minnesota. We both celebrate and endure months of cold, gray and snow in winter. We obsess over the Doppler in spring as severe storms push high winds, hail and flooding downpours. A comfortably warm, sunny, quiet Minnesota summer weekend in late July?

Priceless.

High and mostly dry

While I can't rule out an isolated pop-up T-shower this weekend in the Upper Midwest, most of us will enjoy generally sunny and dry skies. High pressure centered over the Great Lakes keeps hold over Minnesota this weekend, and keeps heavy rain and storms at bay to the south. The best chance of a stray T-Storm arrives Sunday afternoon or evening as the high shifts slowly east.

Here's the quick look forecast at a glance for planning purposes into next week. Heat, humidity and storm chances rise Monday and Tuesday.

NOAA's rainfall outlook through Monday keeps most of the significant rain away from Minnesota.

Heavy rains favor the east coast, and monsoon rains could cause flash flooding in the desert southwest this weekend.

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Signs of serious heat again in August?

There are some things we're cautioned to be wary about in Minnesota. People who speak in cliche's. People who change their names, or with two first names? Temperature forecasts in the two-week range.

That said, August still shows signs of some big temperature swings from cool to potential for extreme heat. I want to see a few more GFS runs here, but the notion of another extreme 'heat event' still looms as we move deeper into August. And of course you know we're going to get some 90-degree heat during the State Fair right?

Here's NOAA's GFS model 16-day temperature output for MSP. Got my attention.

Doppler tricks

In World War ll radar watchers noticed odd smudges on radars while looking for German attack planes. The accidental detection of those rain showers would eventually become what we now call 'radar meteorology.' Today's Doppler is many times more sensitive, with much finer resolution. Wind farms, bird flocks, and even insect plumes routinely show up on Doppler. So what happens when a thunderstorm gust front slams into a mayfly hatch swarm over the Mississippi?

Doppler to the rescue.

Tropical action next week?

Two tropical waves coming off Africa bear watching over the weekend. NOAA's National Hurricane Center will be busy evaluating development potential, which ranges between 10 and 50%.

The European Model suggests something may move into the Gulf of Mexico late next week.

Weather Hype: 'Rain bomb' is not really a thing

Many of us who work in the weather profession make a serious effort not to over-hype in our communications. Some meteorologists and 'weather writers' frequently over-hype forecasts, or even try and make up new words that don't really have any basis in science. And yes, your weather colleagues and readers know who you are. When you do that, you give all of us and our profession a bad name, and reduce our credibility as a profession. Weather click bait is running rampant out there. That's not helping us clearly communicate weather science, which is a challenging process.

One group who I really respect is the Capital Weather Gang, a group of professional meteorologists who write about weather and climate science for the Washington Post. I have presented at science communication conferences along with Jason Samenow who is CWG's excellent Weather Editor. This spring I had the pleasure of touring the Washington Post and CWG's offices with Jason at the Post. I also had the pleasure of meeting Angela Fritz, Jason's college at CWG.

Angela writes this piece today about the newest made-up weather term; 'rain-bomb.'

'Rain bomb' is really what we call a microburst in weather science.

I have forecast, warned for, and witnessed dozens of microbursts while forecasting weather in Arizona for 9 years. Angela's piece captures why many of us as meteorologists are frustrated by the seemingly growing carelessness in communicating weather science. This is an extended excerpt, but it's well worth the read.

You go Angela.

‘Rain bomb?’ Seriously? This is the kind of thing that gives weather media a bad rap

I love the Internet, but there are some days I just want to unplug. This is one of those days.

Two weather-related headlines are getting way too much attention right now, and not just within the meteorology community. Readers are confused. WeatherTwitter™ outrage is (comically) in full swing. My head hurts.

First, a headline by Gizmodo published Thursday: “America Has Never Seen a Hot Weather Outlook Like This.”

Then, this morning, from Bloomberg: “Forget Tornadoes: Rain Bombs Are Coming for Your Town.”

This is the kind of thing that gives us a bad rap.

Gizmodo aggregated its hot-weather story (if you can “aggregate” from a single source) froman article by Andrea Thompson over at Climate Central. NOAA’s most recent temperature outlook calls for higher than normal chances of above average temperatures across the entire Lower 48 plus Alaska. Thompson saw this outlook and was curious if NOAA had ever issued an outlook like that before, so she did the leg-work and spoke to a NOAA forecaster who told her they hadn’t — but the archives only go back to 1995. So take from that statistic what you will.

The actual content of Gizmodo’s story was fine. It explained that the archive only goes back to 1995. It also dives into what these outlooks really mean — not that there will be above average warmth but that there’s an increased likelihood of it. But the headline is so over the top that it nullifies everything that follows.

Now let’s talk about “rain bombs.” Where do I even start?

By “rain bombs,” the author is referring to microbursts, which we’ve discussed and pondered frequently here at the Capital Weather Gang. They can happen in any part of the world that is prone to thunderstorms, including across most of the United States. Bloomberg reports that microbursts are “informally known” as rain bombs, but I’ve personally never heard that term and I am actually a meteorologist who actually uses words to communicate with the public about the weather.

'Nuff said.