Breaking Records

The morning of Friday the 13th, I experienced my coldest temperature ever of -10°F. That broke the -9°F I experienced in Shawnee, KS on February 3rd, 2011. Without a doubt that record will be broken many more times this winter, now that real Dakota winter temperatures have arrived. It is currently 7°F and we will drop below zero this evening. It's quite possible we may not go back above zero for another four days! High temperatures the next three days are expected to be around zero, with overnight lows anywhere from -5 to -15. The coldest high temperature I have ever felt was 6°F on February 5th, 2007 in California, PA. So that record will be broken a couple times this week as well.

Dakota Downslope

Since my last post, we tied a record high on the 3rd, then shattered a record high by 5 degrees on the 5th. Impressive considering we have had a snow pack, but it goes to show what a strong enough downsloping wind out of the west can do. Most think of a southerly wind as a warming wind, and for the most part it is, but here in the Plains, a downsloping westerly wind is key to significant warming. Here is a good example from the 5th:

Through morning, winds were out of the west-southwest allowing for a much warmer than normal morning. Then for a brief period, winds switched to the south and the temperature dropped from 43° to 39° in an hour. Winds then switched back to the southwest and eventually west, allowing for warming once again to an eventual record high of 47°. Downslope winds were more prominent in western North Dakota, where some locations reached the low 60s for highs.

December 2011 Climate Data

Day	High	Low	Dep.	Precip.	Snow
1	26	9	+1	0.00”	0.0”
2	39	19	+12	0.00"	0.0"
3	32	21	+11	Trace	Trace
4	21	9	-1	Trace	Trace
5	11	-3	-11	Trace	Trace
6	28	1	0	0.00"	0.0"
7	36	13	+11	Trace	Trace
8	21	5	-1	0.00"	0.0"
9	18	-1	-5	0.00"	0.0"
10	38	10	+11	0.00"	0.0"
11	41	15	+15	0.00"	0.0"
12	24	14	+7	0.00"	0.0"
13	30	16	+11	0.00"	0.0"
14	34	26	+18	Trace	Trace
15	31	11	+10	Trace	Trace
16	21	10	+5	Trace	0.1"
17	35	11	+12	0.00"	0.0"
18	51R	20	+26	0.00"	0.0"
19	29	12	+11	0.00"	0.0"
20	42	14	+18	0.00"	0.0"
21	33	23	+18	Trace	Trace
22	32	12	+13	Trace	Trace
23	32	8	+11	0.00"	0.0"
24	41	6	+15	0.00"	0.0"
25	44	25	+26	0.00"	0.0"
26	49R	22	+28	0.00"	0.0"
27	22	4	+5	Trace	Trace
28	36	11	+16	0.11"	1.4"
29	30	3	+9	Trace	Trace
30	25	21	+8	0.31"	4.4"
31	36	24	+22	0.12"	0.8"
Dec. 2011	31.9	12.6	+10.7	0.54”	6.7”

Average High: 31.9°F [Departure from Normal: +11.9°F]
Average Low: 12.6°F [Departure from Normal: +9.4°F]
Mean Temperature: 22.2°F [Departure From Normal: +10.7°F]

Total Precipitation: 0.54" [Departure from Normal: -0.17"; 76% of normal]
Total Snowfall: 6.7" [Departure from Normal: -3.9"; 63% of normal]

Seasonal Snowfall:8.1" [Departure from Normal: -9.5"; 46% of normal]

Finally! Winter!!

It's a winter wonderland outside! 1.4" of snow fell on Wednesday the 28th which, believe it or not, doubled our seasonal snowfall. Another system quickly arrived late last night and continued into morning, giving us another 4.4" of snow, for a total of 5.8" of snow this week! It's so nice walking and driving in snow again (yes I like driving in the snow) and seeing massive snow piles in all the parking lots. The final snowfall of the week in this parade of storm systems arrives by morning. I expect a 1-2 hour period of freezing rain to start, then another 2" of additional snowfall on top of that before snow ends during afternoon. Though there are some indications we could receive another 4" snowfall if we win the 'golden shovel' yet again this week!

Then for Saturday night and Sunday, I am getting really pumped up for potentially my first North Dakota ground blizzard. In the wake of this system, sustained winds 25-35 mph gusting to 50 mph will move in. With a potential 6-8" of snow on the ground, this could get interesting!!
Then next week it gets unseasonably mild again. Blah.

Dec. 28th Snow

A nice coating of snow has fallen this evening, and it is still snowing very lightly. Sadly with less than an inch on the ground, this is easily our second deepest snow pack of the season! With fairly calm winds, it's a serene wintry evening.

So much for that

Thanks to temperatures dropping to a new daily low of 22°F just prior to midnight, the daily temperature departure of +31°F was also lowered, down to +28°F. So much for the incredible +30 temperature departure. Still a very nice day.

The rest of the week finally looks like a La Niña pattern with storm systems barreling into the Pacific Northwest, then a fast zonal flow across the northern tier state. This should translate to quick moving systems providing snow chances every 24-36 hours this week. Although the opportunities for snow increase due to the shear number of systems, because of the fast flow, none of these systems should properly mature resulting in generally light snow chances for each system that clips through North Dakota.

This week may be a transient phase though, with the GFS and Euro forecast models continuing to build a ridge over the western United States after New Year's, taking the storm track generally north of us once again. Basically, a return to where we've been for a wile now....dry and warmer than normal. If that comes to fruition, then I highly doubt I will experience true Dakota wintry conditions until at least the middle of January.

+31...Uff da!

With a high of 49 (breaking the record of 44 set 1901) and a low of 28, our average temperature of 39 degrees was a whopping 31 degrees above normal! Pretty rare to have a temperature departure of +/- 30 degrees and I can not remember the last time this happened at a location I was at. On this date last year, Grand Forks had an average temperature of 1 degree (High: 6, Low: -4), which is much closer to the normal high and low of 17 and -1, respectively.