Wet Monday: Scattered rain and thunder

The atmosphere got a little feisty over Minnesota Sunday night. Two tornadoes were spotted in southern Minnesota with scattered reports of damage into the Twin Cities National Weather Service office.

• 1 S Delavan [Faribault Co, MN] LAW ENFORCEMENT reports TORNADO at 24 Apr, 7:31 PM CDT -- MULTIPLE REPORTS OF A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN SOUTH OF DELAVAN.

• Bricelyn [Faribault Co, MN] BROADCAST MEDIA reports TORNADO at 24 Apr, 7:45 PM CDT -- PHOTO OF A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN IN BRICELYN SENT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA.

• Blue Earth [Faribault Co, MN] LAW ENFORCEMENT reports TSTM WND DMG at 24 Apr, 7:30 PM CDT -- TREE BRANCHES DOWN. REPORT OF TRAILER TOSSED BY WINDS AND POSSIBLE TORNADO.

• NEW Richland [Waseca Co, MN] LAW ENFORCEMENT reports TSTM WND DMG at 24 Apr, 8:05 PM CDT -- POWER LINES REPORTED DOWN IN NEW RICHLAND...MULTIPLE REPORTS OF FUNNEL CLOUD SIGHTINGS. TORNADO POSSIBLE.

Overall, seven tornadoes reports came into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center from Kansas into southern Minnesota.

Wet Monday

As of 9 a.m. Monday, several Minnesota sites reported rainfall over one-half inch with many 1 inch-plus rainfall totals in the past 24 hours.

As the center of low pressure slides through southern Minnesota today, more scattered showers and thunderstorms will rumble across our area. NOAA's North American Mesoscale Forecast System 4 km resolution model shows storm clusters popping and spinning through today at times.

Today's severe risk area is south of Minnesota, but as the center of low pressure swirls overhead today, I can't rule out an isolated brief funnels spinning up as low-topped storm rotate through southern Minnesota today.

Superior gales

Jay Austin from the University of Minnesota Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory tells me high winds over 30 mph are cranking out waves to 12 feet on Lake Superior:

Given the conditions up here, this seems like a good opportunity to mention that UMD's two meteorological buoys were deployed about 10 days ago. You can see recent data from them here:

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jaustin/UMD_buoys/

(this links to our coastal buoy, near the McQuade landing; there is a link to our "offshore" buoy, which measures waves as well).

We measured 12 footers this morning, and wind speeds in excess of 30 knots, gusts to 35.

you can also see the data in graphical and tabular form at

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=45027

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=45028

 

Multiple lows

The bigger picture shows one low pressure center sliding through today. A second more powerful low triggers a severe outbreak in the central Plains Tuesday and push another band of rain toward Minnesota by Wednesday.

Expect a cool wet week with bouts of rain. The sunniest day looks like Friday.

Tuesday severe outbreak

All signs point to a significant severe outbreak with tornadoes likely Tuesday afternoon and evening across Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. NOAA's Storm Prediction center is already sounding alarm bells, and painting the moderate risk area.

Stay tuned.