Sunny, Breezy Thursday - Mid/Upper 90s Return For Labor Day Weekend

Where has the summer gone? Feels like just yesterday that kids were getting out of school and everyone was making their summer plans. How many of my plans got done? Not enough! Anyway, as we look at August 1st-29th, the average temperature has been only three degrees above average despite that hot stretch of weather we saw earlier in the month. That makes it the 12th warmest August to date. While we have received 2.29" of rain, it's still below average and the 50th driest August to date.

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We will end the month of August on Thursday dry, sunny, and breezy. Morning temperatures will start off around 60F with highs in the low 80s. Winds will be breezy though - sustained out of the south-southeast at 5-15 mph but gusting to around 25 mph.

A mainly sunny day is expected across the state on Thursday, but we will still watch some smoke near the ground out in western Minnesota. Highs range from the 60s along the North Shore to the 80s across a good portion of the state.

Winds will be strongest out in western Minnesota on Thursday, with gusts approaching 40 mph in the Red River Valley. The winds here in the metro will be strongest in the late afternoon/dinner hour time frame.

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We're heading into the Labor Day weekend, and I know some of you will be sneaking out of work and getting it started early on Friday. We're expecting mainly sunny skies across the state with highs nearing 90F in the metro. It could be the start of a stretch of 90s that lasts through next Tuesday.

While we may not see the second 100F of September on record in the metro, several record highs are expected across the region - mainly on Sunday and Labor Day Monday. You can see on Sunday it'll be around 90F all the way up to the International Border.

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Rare 100-Degree September High Possible
By Paul Douglas

Once again Minnesota has failed to make the Top 10 Most Hurricane-Prone States in the US. Florida is still America's undisputed hurricane capital. Data from 1851 to 2018 showed 120 hurricanes hitting Florida, twice the number as #2 Texas. North Carolina, Louisiana and South Carolina round out the top 5. And you think you're paying a lot for homeowners insurance?

"Idalia" is churning out to sea, and what is it about the I-storms? Since 1955 a total of 13 storms starting with "I" have had their names retired due to damage and loss of life, the most of any letter.

We "cool" into the 80s the latter half of next week. I suspect that September will be unusually toasty.

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Paul's Extended Twin Cities Forecast

THURSDAY: Warm sunshine. Wake up 62. High 82. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind S 10-20 mph.

FRIDAY: Blue sky, heating up. Wake up 65. High 90. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind SW 15-25 mph.

SUNDAY: Sunny and tropical. Record: 97 (1925). Wake up 75. High 98. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind SW 9-13 mph.

MONDAY: Sizzling Labor Day. Record: 98 (1925). Wake up 76. High 98. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind S 10-25 mph.

TUESDAY: Still stuffy, late T-storms? Wake up 74. High 91. Chance of precipitation 30%. Wind W 10-20 mph.

WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny, cooling off a little. Wake up 66. High 83. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NE 10-15 mph.

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*Length Of Day: 13 hours, 18 minutes, and 24 seconds
*Daylight LOST Since Yesterday: 2 minutes and 59 seconds

*When Do We Drop Below 13 Hours Of Sunlight? September 7th (12 hours, 57 minutes, 11 seconds)
*When Are Sunrises At/After 7:00 AM? September 23rd (7:01 AM)
*When Are Sunsets At/Before 7:00 PM? September 28th (6:59 PM)
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This Day in Weather History
August 31st

1949: The earliest snowfall on record for Minnesota occurs on this date. A trace of snow is recorded at the new Duluth airport.

1947: A tornado hits Le Center, killing one person.

Idalia will continue to bring storm activity to the eastern Mid-Atlantic on Thursday, with another low-pressure area bringing some storms to areas hard hit by the storm on Wednesday down in Florida and Georgia. Elsewhere, we'll be tracking some storms that are possible along the International Border in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, as well as monsoonal storms in the western U.S. A system will bring showers to the Pacific Northwest.

The heaviest rain from Wednesday through Friday will fall across the Southeastern United States in association with Idalia, where some locations could see at least 4-8" of rainfall.

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Hurricane Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach, FL, at 7:45 AM EDT on Wednesday in the Big Bend of Florida. While the storm reached its peak of 130 mph winds a couple of hours before landfall - making it a Category 4 hurricane - it started to undergo an eyewall replacement as it approached land. That led to slight weakening before landfall, with winds of 125 mph (Category 3). Idalia brought the Southeast storm surge, flooding rains, and damaging winds that downed trees and power lines.

Idalia will continue to move across portions of the Southeast/Mid-Atlantic through Wednesday Night, pushing offshore on Thursday morning and eventually heading out to sea. We do expect additional weakening while it's over land but then it will level out in strength through the weekend as it moves east toward Bermuda.

4 takeaways from the grid's record-breaking summer

More from E&E News: "Grid monitors issued dire warnings ahead of the summer that Americans could face blackouts during an extreme heat wave — but so far, that hasn't happened. Why? There isn't a simple answer for the grid's stability despite record-breaking heat — new wind turbines, solar panels and batteries played a major role on the hottest days, but gas and coal plants remained a bedrock. Grid operators and utilities say they're better prepared for extreme weather. And there was a dash of luck, suggesting that the outcome could have been worse. There's also still plenty of summer to go, and there are signs of strain."

TEMPO Instrument Captures Its First Images Of Air Pollution Over Greater North America

More from CleanTechnica: "The first images, collected once per hour over a six-hour time window Aug. 2, give a preview of TEMPO's ability to track nitrogen dioxide on an hourly basis in geographic areas as small as four square miles, or about the size of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Nitrogen dioxide is a toxic pollutant involved in the formation of ground-level ozone and particle pollution, and it is primarily released from burning fuel. "Our first look at TEMPO's data shows that it is working superbly," said Xiong Liu, the deputy principal investigator of the TEMPO mission, a senior physicist from SAO and a member of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "This is a very exciting moment for our team after working on TEMPO for over a decade. We can now proudly say we're beginning a new era of air-quality monitoring over North America.""

How Vivek Ramaswamy makes money from climate denial

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- D.J. Kayser