Some Scattered Storms Sunday - Northwest U.S. Bakes Under Record Heat

As we head into Sunday, we are watching the chance for a few more showers and storms, with the highest potential occurring from the midday hours onward. Otherwise, a mix of sun and clouds to partly sunny skies are expected. Morning temperatures will be in the mid-60s with highs in the low 80s.

As we look across the state, a round of scattered midday/afternoon/evening storms is expected to pop. Any storms around should start to die off as we head toward sunset. Highs will be in the 70s and 80s for most locations, right around average.

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Highs will remain around average in the Twin Cities through the end of June on Wednesday, sticking in the low to mid-80s. We will watch the potential for afternoon and evening storms just about every day through the middle of the week, but odds are higher for those storms to develop Sunday and early in the week.

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Looking farther out toward the Fourth of July weekend (which the 4th is next Sunday), it currently looks like it could be quiet - though many things can change between now and then. We'll see a mix of sun and clouds to mainly sunny skies with highs continuing to be in the low to mid-80s.

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I don't have to tell you it's been a really warm June here in the Twin Cities, with an average temperature through the 25th of 77.2F degrees, 8.2F degrees above average. Through the 25th, that's still the warmest start to the month on record, beating out the 76.5F from 1933. We'll have to see if we can hold on to that number one spot through the end of the month, though, as the warmest overall June on record of 1933 saw an average temperature of 77.9F. With no additional 90s in the forecast through the end of the month, it appears we'll be stuck at 12 which would be tied with 1934 for the 4th most on record for June and tied for the 22nd most on record for any month of the year.

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The latest drought update, issued Thursday, showed our drought continuing to expand across the state. Now 74.75% of the state was in Moderate Drought, with 13.75% of the state in Severe Drought.

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Happy To See Rain on the Doppler

By Paul Douglas

Yesterday on Twitter (@pdouglasweather) Penelope asked a thoughtful question after I posted an image of heavy rain moving into the MSP metro. "Can't it just rain M-F?" Ah butterfly, if only my Doppler was that magnificent. In truth, I'm quite relieved we can't change the weather on a large scale (yet). Any weather modification business would include a mad scientist and 50 lawyers. Because you'd be getting sued every other day for unintentional side effects of tinkering with the atmosphere. I doubt farmers and golfers can agree on the definition of "good weather".

Yesterday's slow-moving storm soaked farms over the southern third of Minnesota, where the drought is most severe. Skies brighten today, but showers and T-storms linger into Thursday as a blocking pattern forces an upper air storm to stall out over the Upper Midwest.

The 4th of July holiday looks mainly dry and sunny with 80s, considerably better than usual! Meanwhile dangerous heat will torch Seattle and Portland into Monday: 100-110F. Unreal.

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Paul's Extended Twin Cities Forecast

SUNDAY: Some sun, stray T-storm. Wake up 64. High 79. Chance of precipitation 40%. Wind SW 5-10 mph.

MONDAY: Sunny start, PM showers, storms. Wake up 66. High 83. Chance of precipitation 60%. Wind NW 5-10 mph.

TUESDAY: Free watering. Swarms of T-storms. Wake up 67. High 80. Chance of precipitation 70%. Wind NW 5-10 mph.

WEDNESDAY: Sunnier and warmer. Wake up 65. High 85. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind W 5-10 mph.

THURSDAY: Unsettled, passing T-shower. Wake up 67. High 83. Chance of precipitation 40%. Wind NE 10-20 mph.

FRIDAY: Partly sunny and comfortable. Wake up 58. High 78. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NE 8-13 mph.

SATURDAY: Sunny spells, lake-worthy. Wake up 63. High 83. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NW 8-13 mph.

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Minneapolis Weather Almanac And Sun Data
June 27th

*Length Of Day: 15 hours, 35 minutes and 13 seconds
*Daylight LOST Since Yesterday: 27 seconds

*When Do We Drop Below 15 Hours And 30 Minutes Of Daylight? July 5th (15 hours, 29 minutes, and 3 seconds)
*When Is The Sunrise At/After 5:30 AM?: June 30th (5:30 AM)
*When Is The Latest Sunset Of The Year?: June 19th-July 2nd (9:03 PM)

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This Day in Weather History
June 27th

1908: A tornado hits Clinton in Big Stone County.

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More heavy rain will fall Sunday across portions of the central United States, though some of the heaviest rain across this area is expected to fall Saturday. Storms will also be possible in the Southeast and across New England. The other big story is the heat baking the Northwest through the weekend into the early week timeframe, with all-time record highs possible.

From Saturday through Monday, at least 3-5" of rain could fall from portions of Texas northeastward into southern Michigan. This could lead to flash flooding.

Here's a day-by-day breakdown of the record heat across the Northwest over the next several days. Many people in the Pacific Northwest do not have air conditioning, so this heat will be even more taxing with the length and severity of the heat. All-time record highs and June record highs could be set in several locations.

ALL-TIME RECORD HIGHS:

JUNE RECORD HIGHS:

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Florida's Oceanfront Cities Are Not Prepared for Sea Level Rise

More from Gizmodo: "On Thursday, a 12-story beachside condo building just north of Miami Beach collapsed, killing at least four people with almost 160 still missing. It could be a scary sign for the future, particularly as sea level rise undermines the very foundation that South Florida sits on. Long before the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside crashed, the building started sinking. An April 2020 study found that the area showed signs of land subsidence—sinking brought on by natural occurrences like sinkholes and exacerbated by human activities like extracting fossil fuels and groundwater. The study's authors told USA Today that back in the 1990s, the building was descending at a rate of 0.08 inches (2 millimeters) per year, though it's not clear that that necessarily contributed to its horrific collapse. Officials are just beginning their investigation into what caused the building's devastating crash. It will take more data to suss out what happened and the role, if any, subsidence played."

A $26 Billion Plan to Save the Houston Area From Rising Seas

More from WIRED: "When Hurricane Ike made landfall in 2008, Bill Merrell took shelter on the second floor of a historic brick building in downtown Galveston, Texas, along with his wife, their daughter, their grandson, and two Chihuahuas. Sustained winds of 110 mph lashed the building. Seawater flooded the ground floor to a depth of over 8 feet. Once, in the night, Merrell caught glimpses of a near-full moon and realized they had entered the hurricane's eye. Years earlier, Merrell, a physical oceanographer at Texas A&M University at Galveston, had toured the gigantic Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, a nearly 6-mile-long bulwark that prevents North Sea storms from flooding the southern Dutch coast. As Ike roared outside, Merrell kept thinking about the barrier. "The next morning, I started sketching what I thought would look reasonable here," he said, "and it turned out to be pretty close to what the Dutch would have done.""

Yellowstone and Warming: An Iconic Park Faces Startling Changes

More from Yale Environment 360: "In 1872, when Yellowstone was designated as the first national park in the United States, Congress decreed that it be "reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, and sale and … set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Yet today, Yellowstone — which stretches 3,472 square miles across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — is facing a threat that no national park designation can protect against: rising temperatures. Since 1950, the iconic park has experienced a host of changes caused by human-driven global warming, including decreased snowpack, shorter winters and longer summers, and a growing risk of wildfires. These changes, as well as projected changes as the planet continues to warm this century, are laid out in a just-released climate assessment that was years in the making. The report examines the impacts of climate change not only in the park, but also in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — an area 10 times the size of the park itself."

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Thanks for checking in and have a great day! Don't forget to follow me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) and like me on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).

- D.J. Kayser