by Paul Douglas | Oct 1, 2020 | Weather
October: A Month of Manic Meteorology Welcome to a fickle month of full-bodied weather. October has brought everything from 90s to flooding rains, rare tornadoes and wild winds. Frozen water, too. Average Twin Cities snowfall this month is .6 inches. We rarely see...
by Paul Douglas | Oct 1, 2020 | Weather
Warming Trend Likely Into Mid-October “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace” said the Dalai Lama. I vaguely remember inner peace. Someone freeze me like a popsicle and thaw me out in 2022. I achieved some level of inner peace gazing...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 30, 2020 | Weather
A Raw Weekend But Weather Mellows Next Week Weather is a metaphor for life: an unpredictable mash-up of good and bad, with only the illusion of control. In my muddled mind I consider the blustery showers rushing past my window cosmic payback for last week’s 80s....
by Paul Douglas | Sep 29, 2020 | Weather
November-ish This Week, Septemberlike Next Week Winston Churchill said “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give”. I’m trying to call at least one friend, family member or colleague every day, to check in and say hi – see...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 25, 2020 | Weather
NOAA Takes Steps To Catch Up to ECMWF For the record, I’d like American Exceptionalism to apply to weather model accuracy. My take: The National Weather Service is the best on the planet, but in recent years the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Range Weather...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 24, 2020 | Weather
La Nina Now Likely This Winter I’ve consulted my therapist and my winter outlook remains unchanged: “Colder with some snow”. It’s the details (when, where, how much?) that trip me up every time. According to NOAA, a La Nina cooling phase in the...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 23, 2020 | Weather
2020: A Disruptive Year For Weather Too “There are two ways to be fooled. One, to believe what isn’t true. The other is to refuse to believe what is true” wrote 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The way 2020 is turning out it’s...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 22, 2020 | Weather
The Limits of Long Range Forecasting “Paul, please help. My little girl is having an outdoor wedding on October 11. Any idea what the weather will be?” Yes I do. Changeable. It might be easier to predict where the stock market will be on October 11. There...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 18, 2020 | Weather
Finding The Good In Every Season “Embrace the Suck.” My youngest son is a Naval aviator. He was given that sage advice during Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Translation: try to turn any negative into a positive. Look for the good –...
by Paul Douglas | Sep 17, 2020 | Weather
A Quiet, Lukewarm Pattern for Minnesota Climate refugees? Maybe Bangladesh or the Maldive Islands in the Pacific, but here in the U.S.? As a warming climate makes naturally-occurring fires, floods and hurricanes more intense experts predict a slow-motion migration...
