Quiet Weather Continues With A Sunny Thursday

While we could begin (and end) the day with a few clouds around the metro, it will mostly be a sunny day with morning temperatures in the upper 20s and highs in the mid-30s.

A few more clouds will be around throughout the day across northern parts of the state, otherwise, a mix of sun and clouds to mainly sunny conditions are expected across the southern two-thirds of Minnesota. Highs will range from the upper 20s in northern Minnesota to near 40F by Sioux Falls.

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Looking at the rest of the week and the weekend:

Friday: A mix of sun and clouds could begin the first day of December, otherwise, cloudier conditions will work in throughout the day. Highs will be in the mid-30s.

Saturday: A mainly cloudy day is expected with highs in the mid to upper 30s. A few snow showers could be around Saturday Night.

Sunday: While you see a snow icon on the Sunday forecast, I think any snow is going to be light and early in the day. Most of the day will just be mainly cloudy. Highs will be in the upper 30s.

40s Likely First Week Of December
By Paul Douglas

"Never argue with someone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf" said British actress Emilia Clarke, who you may remember as Daenerys Targaryen in "Game of Thrones". Full disclosure: I have a stack of (unread) books AND a 75" TV screen. Please don't argue with me.

Snow lovers aren't very happy with me but I'm just the messenger. Snow is part of Minnesota's ethos. Winter isn't a season, it's a profession. But a new study shows more winter precipitation across the US falling as rain. Alaskan climate scientist Brian Brettschneider's analysis shows a 2.7% decline in annual global snowfall since 1973, with a 20-30% decrease from Missouri into the Ohio Valley and Mid South. Minnesota? A 5-10% decrease since the early 70s. I no longer take a snowy winter for granted.

Expect sunshine today and Friday with upper 30s. A few decorative flurries are possible Sunday. Any storms? What are these "storms" you speak of? A clipper may coat lawns Monday night, but 40s return the latter half of next week. El Nino, 'dat you?

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THURSDAY: Sunny and pleasant. Wake up 27. High 37. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind NW 10-15 mph.

FRIDAY: Less sun, lighter winds. Wake up 22. High 36. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind NE 5-10 mph.

SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy and quiet. Wake up 23. High 37. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind SE 8-13 mph.

SUNDAY: Cloudy with a few flurries. Wake up 26. High 38. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind SE 8-13 mph.

MONDAY: Clipper. Coating of slush at night? Wake up 25. High 35. Chance of precipitation 60%. Wind W 5-10 mph.

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny. December warm front. Wake up 30. High 46. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind SW 10-20 mph.

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Minneapolis Weather Almanac And Sun Data
November 30th

*Length Of Day: 9 hours, 3 minutes, and 52 seconds
*Daylight LOST Since Yesterday: 1 minute and 37 seconds

*When Do We Drop Below 9 Hours Of Sunlight? December 3rd (8 hours, 59 minutes, 24 seconds)
*When Is Sunrise At/After 7:30 AM? December 1st (7:30 AM)
*What Is The Earliest Sunset? December 8th-14th (4:31 PM)
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2006: Lake effect snow occurs downwind of the larger lakes in Minnesota. Northwest winds from 8 to 12 mph accompanied an air mass in the single digits. This moved over lakes with water temperatures near 40 degrees. A cloud plume from Mille Lacs stretched all the way to Siren Wisconsin. Snow from Ottertail Lake and Lake Lida reduced visibilities at Alexandria to a few miles. Even some low clouds formed from Lake Minnetonka and were observed at Flying Cloud Airport.

2000: A surface low pressure system moves into extreme southwestern Minnesota from South Dakota. The heaviest snow reported was in the 6 to 8 inch range, and fell in a narrow band just southwest of the Minnesota River in and around the Canby (Yellow Medicine County) and Madison (Lac Qui Parle County) areas. Northeast winds rising out of the Minnesota river valley up the slopes of the Buffalo Ridge in southwest Minnesota helped enhance snowfall amounts. The northeasterly winds between 10 and 20 mph were responsible for producing visibilities in the one to two mile range.

1991: A storm dumps 14 inches of snow in the Twin Cities in about 12 hours.

1896: Bitterly cold temperatures are reported across Minnesota. A low of 45 below zero occurs at the Pokegama Dam.

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An Enhanced Risk of severe weather (threat level 3 of 5) exists just north and northeast of Houston on Thursday, where several tornadoes could be possible. This could start in the late morning hours, with the severe weather potential lasting into the evening.

Heavy rain is expected to fall in southeastern Texas and parts of Louisiana Thursday into Friday, with some locations near Houston seeing over 3" through the second part of the week.

Heavier snow returns to the Cascases and Rockies out west, with several feet possible in the Cascades through Friday.

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What Happened to the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Boom?

Here are the 4 issues to watch at COP28

More from Grist: "Every year, world leaders gather under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assess countries' progress toward reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rise. The most famous of these so-called Conferences of Parties, or COPs, resulted in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, which marked the first time the world's countries united behind a goal to limit global temperature increase. That treaty consists of 29 articles with numerous targets, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing financial flows to the most climate-vulnerable countries, and establishing a carbon market. This year's COP, which commences in Dubai on Thursday, is all about determining whether that agreement succeeds or fails. For the first time since the Paris accords, the negotiators assembled at COP28 over the next two weeks will conduct a "global stocktake" to measure how much progress they've made toward those goals."

The Salton Sea has even more lithium than previously thought, new report finds

More from the Los Angeles Times: "Want to produce a huge amount of lithium for electric vehicle batteries — and also batteries that keep our homes powered after sundown — without causing the environmental destruction that lithium extraction often entails? Then the Salton Sea may be your jam. Companies big and small have been swarming California's largest lake for years, trying to find a cost-effective way to pull out the lithium dissolved in scorching hot fluid deep beneath the lake's southern end. Now a new federal analysis suggests even more of the valuable metal is buried down there than we previously understood. The new analysis — led by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and reported here for the first time — finds we may be able to extract 18 million metric tons of "white gold" from the heated underground pool, which is not connected to the surface lake. That's the first thoroughly documented public estimate of how much lithium is available at the Salton Sea, said Alex Prisjatschew, an engineer with the U.S. Department of Energy, which funded the analysis — and it's higher than past guesses."

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Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

- D.J. Kayser