It’s all day time heating

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Our forecast for Fairbanks late in June featured a pretty decent thunderstorm on the 21st. It resulted in about a quarter inch of rain, and the revelation to a few people, I’m sure, that there is thunder in the middle of Alaska. The low pressure that shifted out of the area allowed Fairbanks to see a bit more of the non stop daylight from around the summer equinox, and all that daylight pushed temperatures to close to 80. Victoria-Weather got the top forecast for the day, despite speculating on rain every day through the forecast.
Actuals: June 21st, .23″ of rain, High 75, Low 53
June 22nd, High 79, Low 51

Grade: B-D

Water briefly receding, will proceed again

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I mentioned the rain that is forecast to come this week, painting a particular target on eastern Iowa, southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin in my last update. Fortunately, the overlap with areas that have already seen too much rain this summer is not perfect. But there is still overlap, and the rain has caused some mighty problems for areas from the Siouxland of Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska northeast through south central Minnesota.

In southeastern South Dakota, McCook Lake, an unconnected oxbow lake suddenly had water flowing into it from runoff and redirected flow, causing it to overspill its bank, and destroying property north of Sioux City. The rising water damaged cropland from Nebraska and South Dakota east through northwest Iowa and southwestern Minnesota. The towns of Windom, Jackson and Waterville were underwater, because of the Des Moines River in Windom and Jackson, and the Cannon River in Waterville. The above video shows the scene in the south Twin Cities metro, where Shakopee’s Valley Fair Amusement Park had to close some rides and lost use of their parking lot because the Minnesota has spilled its banks. And of course, we have all seen video of the rising water opting to circumvent the Rapidan Dam, with disastrous regional effects.

Fortunately, it was a dry weekend. Unfortunately, the week ahead doesn’t look that way. A few more successive waves in the northern Plains look to keep things cool and wet. The bullseye for wet weather is shifted a bit to the east, so the smaller creeks and rivers may not see repeat flood risks, but most of these waterways flow in the same direction. Eventually, there may be concern for Mississippi River towns from the Twin Cities on south.

Rain just keeps coming

Ryan Henning 1 Comment

Rain has been a destructive force for the Upper Midwest this early summer season. The heavy rain has swamped a particular swath from the Sioux City area to the high profile overwhelming of the Rapidan dam in southern Minnesota. There is more rain on the way in what should be another busy week, but this time, it is shifted about half a state to the east.

This kind of rain isn’t going to help anything, as much of the precipitation will be flowing towards those same, overwhelmed locations. For good measure, more rain is coming for southwest Florida as well, a place that flooded earlier this year.

Quite literally, when it rains, it pours.

April/May Forecasters of the Month

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It’s certainly been a minute since we checked in on the status of our top forecasters for the months and the year. It’s too bad because especially in April, the news was good for Victoria-Weather. It was a well contested month by all parties, but Victoria-Weather ended up comfortably surpassing our competitors.

We had a few more stops on the forecast train in May, which will allow our champion, Accuweather, to take a little bit more credit for the month. Not to toot our own horns, but Victoria-Weather came in second in May as well. A solid spring, but what’s the story for the year?

OutletForecast Wins (year)
The Weather Channel8.82
Victoria-Weather5.48
WeatherNation2.83
Accuweather2.66
Clime2.5
National Weather Service1.49
Weatherbug1

Blistering

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Things have mercifully cooled off in the American Southwest since our forecast in Albuquerque at the beginning of the month (though fires still rage). Back then, there was hope for some isolated showers and storms by a few of our outlets, but they would not come to pass on the 7th or 8th of the month. This meant temperatures lingered unchecked in the upper 90s, with enough humidity to make New Mexicans especially uncomfortable. The splash of showers in the forecast, and the lack thereof in reality brought a couple of outlets level on this particular verification, with Clime and Accuweather having different precip forecasts and sharing a win.
Actuals: June 7th, High 97, Low 73
June 8th, High 97, Low 69

Grade: A-C

Fairbanks, Alaska

Ryan Henning 1 Comment

Fairbanks! Wow. This is certainly one of the most remote, but also one of the smallest towns that get forecast treatment here at Victoria-Weather. It’s a summer forecast as we approach the solstice, so it’s probably going to be a little tame, actually.

At 753PM, Alaskan Time, Fairbanks was reporting mostly cloudy skies with a temperature of 74. There was a smattering of isolated showers and potentially thunderstorms ringing the city, with the most significant cell around Fort Greely. Deep low pressure south of the Aleutians is churning up moist return flow through southern Alaska, and is contributing to a few orographic showers and storms.
The system will continue eastward over the next couple of days, which will only invigorate the the shower activity in central Alaska. This will allow the activity to become more robust through the forecast period, before beginning to taper a bit in coverage and intensity as the low reaches the Panhandle and British Columbia.
Tomorrow – Isolated showers and storms, High, 76, Low 54
Friday – Showers and storms early, winding down in the afternoon, High 77, Low 53

TWC: Tomorrow – Partly to mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. High 75, Low 56
Friday – Partly cloudy skies High 76, Low 55

AW: Tomorrow – Becoming cloudy with a couple of showers High 76, Low 55
Friday – Some sun, then turning cloudy with a couple of showers High 76, Low 53

NWS: Tomorrow – Scattered showers and thunderstorms before 1pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 1pm and 4pm, then scattered showers and thunderstorms after 4pm High 76, Low 55
Friday – Scattered showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 1pm. Partly sunny High 76, Low 54

WB: Tomorrow – Haze in the morning. Partly sunny with scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms in the morning, then mostly cloudy with numerous showers and isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon. Some thunderstorms may produce small hail frequent lightning and heavy rainfall in the afternoon. High 77, Low 59
Friday – Partly cloudy with scattered showers. Isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon. High 76, Low 59

WN: Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy with numerous showers and isolated storms, High 76, Low 56
Friday – Partly cloudy with scattered showers and isolated storms, High 75, Low 55

CLI: Tomorrow – Rain showers, High 79, Low 54
Friday – Partly cloudy, High 76, Low 54

Fun fact – I can copy and paste the first three outlets into this post, but I manually type the other forecasts in, so thanks for today ,Weatherbug. I’m not giving you an image, because I am exhausted, but find out more from Amanda Hanson at KTVF in Fairbanks.

Springing a leak

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The verification in Killeen seemed to be perfectly in order. Victoria-Weather, in fact, ended up with only two degrees of error in the forecast. There were a few outlets that were narrowly off the pace, which would have been an A forecast for our group, if it weren’t for one thing. It rained on both days of the verification, and nobody had it in their forecast. Victoria-Weather ended up with the victory, but it wasn’t as gaudy as it could have been.
Actuals – June 6th, .02″ of rain, High 94, Low 72
June 7th, .01″ of rain, High 94, Low 72

Grade: C-D

Albuquerque, New Mexico to Anderson, Indiana

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I like the road trips that are more or less diagonal across the country, but this one has some pretty well worn interstate routes to follow. The drive will cover 1326 miles, which we will spend 2 long days accomplishing. All those interstates mean we can travel at oer 68mph, and our first day will conclude after 545 miles, leaving plenty of meat on the bone for Wednesday.

DAY ONE (Tuesday)

Albuquerque, New Mexico

The day will begin beautifully in the Land of Enchantment, and we will head east through New Mexico, encountering little by way of significant weather along the way. Storms rumbling now will have a tough time petering out through the morning over west Texas, but as we shift into the Panhandle, things will finally begin winding down. This is because the dry line will start becoming active in eastern New Mexico. It looks like we will thread the needle! It should be hot and stuffy, but dry in Oklahoma City as we arrive for the night.

DAY TWO (Wednesday)
Wednesday looks even better, which is great, given the long drive we have ahead of us. We’re going to cover 4 states, and may not see a cloud (though maybe to start the day would be our best chance.) Temperatures will be getting cooler as we go, but make no mistake – pack your sunscreen and plan on finding a pool.

Anderson, Indiana

Dry for a couple of days

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Houston has had a wet spring. It’s either been raining or it’s been excessively humid. Wet. For a couple of days in June, though, temperatures were hot, but not oppressive. It was humid, but it has certainly been worse. Many outlets still thought rain would be on the way during our forecast period at the beginning of June. Among those was WeatherNation. It didn’t rain on the 3rd or 4th, but that didn’t set WeatherNation back far enough to fall out of first place, thanks to a top notch temperature forecast.
Actuals: Monday June 3rd, High 88, Low 79
Tuesday June 4th, High 90, Low 81

Grade: A-C