MPR’s Cathy Wurzer talks with Mark Seeley, meteorologist at the University of Minnesota, about sudden changes in the summer weather. Areas of the state went form drought conditions to record breaking rainfall in a span of a week. Unexpected tornadoes in the Twin Cities are also discussed.
[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: I was remarking off air to Mark Seeley that I've been driving in rain the past 48 hours, going back and forth from Duluth to Minneapolis the past few days here. It has been raining since Wednesday, and it's still raining here this morning in the Twin Cities. So there's a lot to talk about here.
MARK SEELEY: Oh, yeah. Well, certainly for most of our weather observers in the state, Cathy, this has been the wettest week of the year by a mile. Yeah.
CATHY WURZER: Well, in terms of the rainfall amounts, it has to be better than 3, 4, 5, 6 inches in some places.
MARK SEELEY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And records have been set-- oh, Duluth had a record amount. Cloquet, Ortonville, Milan, a whole host of observers had record amounts. Some now are already approaching record amounts for the month of August. And we've still got, what, 11 days to go.
CATHY WURZER: That's not necessarily bad though, because we we're in a drought situation.
MARK SEELEY: No, no. In fact, I kind of blame myself for bringing this on.
CATHY WURZER: You kind of did.
MARK SEELEY: Back on August 7 on Almanac, you and Eric asked me what it would take to make up all these horrible rainfall deficits we were accumulating and if it was possible in the month of August. And I said, slim chance. That's all I needed to say.
CATHY WURZER: And Mother Nature heard you. And she said, I'll prove you wrong, Mark Seeley.
MARK SEELEY: That's right. Some of those deficits that were on the order of 5 to 10 inches below normal, we've made up 3/4 inches on some of those deficits already this month. So it's been good from that standpoint. It has been welcome from that standpoint.
CATHY WURZER: What was not welcome and was a huge surprise, the four week tornadoes that hit the Twin Cities metro area earlier this week.
MARK SEELEY: Absolutely a surprise. Absolutely across the board a surprise. Fortunately, as you said, weak EF0-- I think one was designated EF1, if I'm not mistaken. And certainly not to belittle the damage that occurred-- I know those homeowners that were hit. There is some serious damage going on there-- but very unusual, very, very unusual.
Paul Huttner wrote wonderfully about this on the Updraft blog because there were so many unusual attributes to that storm. I don't think there's a meteorologist in the country that would have seen that coming, given the embedded circulations and what small scale they were, and then how they developed so fast between 2 and 4 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon.
CATHY WURZER: Just goes to show that, yes, it is possible to have a tornado in the metro area.
MARK SEELEY: Absolutely. We're not immune from that. In fact, it was reminiscent, at least in my memory, of June 1981 when we had a tornado develop over Lake Harriet, migrate across the Twin Cities, come out over the HarMar mall in Roseville. And it inflicted quite a bit of damage as well.
CATHY WURZER: Let's look, then, ahead, shall we? September through November, our friends at the Climate Prediction Center say?
MARK SEELEY: They say we're going to be either above or below normal. Isn't that a safe bet? That's the standard fare when the models don't agree, Cathy. And you and I have talked about that over the years.
The only distinction I would let listeners in on is there is a hint from the Hadley Center, which is another very widely respected modeling center, that the Western Great Lakes region may continue wetter than normal well into this fall. So some of these rainfall deficiencies that we have seen, they may be totally wiped out by the time we get late into the fall season.
CATHY WURZER: That's not a bad thing. Say, State Fair time. I can't believe the State Fair is next week.
MARK SEELEY: State fair opens Thursday, the 27. Gary and I will be doing the annual Minnesota weather quiz broadcast from Judson and Nelson there at the MPR booth. Hope that anybody that's on the fairgrounds that day comes over. We're going to be giving away some nice prizes. And of course, we're going to be embarrassing Mr. Seeley to death.
CATHY WURZER: No-- or Mr. Eichten, really.
MARK SEELEY: Or Mr. Eichten. There's always a few embarrassing moments on that show.
CATHY WURZER: There are. Have a good weekend. The weather is going to be great.
MARK SEELEY: Great weekend coming up. Thanks, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: See you later. That's Mark Seeley from the University of Minnesota right here on Minnesota Public Radio news.
Views and opinions expressed in the content do not represent the opinions of APMG. APMG is not responsible for objectionable content and language represented on the site. Please use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report a piece of content. Thank you.
Transcriptions provided are machine generated, and while APMG makes the best effort for accuracy, mistakes will happen. Please excuse these errors and use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report an error. Thank you.