A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN

terryswails1
1 day ago
5 min read

After our little fling with winter, there's a new sheriff in town and he means business. The law has been laid down, no cold, no snow, no wild west weather for at least a week. By order of the law, peaceful weather is the new sheriff in town. Nip it in the bud!

Before, I get to the possibility of a 70 degree high and near record temperatures, my climate and folklore guru, Steve Gottschalk, is taking a deep dive into some of the most notable weather events this area has seen during the month of November. Today's focus will be on severe weather, which occasionally happens. It certainly did back in 1975. Take it away Steve.

THE RARE TORNADO OUTBREAK OF NOVEMBER 9, 1975

A combination of very warm, moist air for so late in the season was present across east central and southeastern Iowa on Nov. 9, 1975. The temperatures rose well into the middle 60s to lower 70s during the afternoon hours. Some of the warmer readings in the area were 70 degree highs in both Clinton and Davenport and 71 degrees in Iowa City and Muscatine.

A cold front pushing into this unusually warm air spawned an outbreak of severe thunderstorms and at least 9 tornadoes which touched down across the southeast third of the state with one supercell producing several tornadoes intermittently along a path from Tama County to the southeast corner of Bremer County. This was the same storm system that would eventually go on to intensify and sink the Edmund Fitzgerald the next day.

The first tornado, an F2, traveled for a distance of 40 miles to the N/N.E. from north of Traer to Evansdale, Dewer and Dunkerton. Twenty farms were damaged along this path. Homes were unroofed, machinery was tossed about and barns were destroyed. Sixty head of cattle were killed on one farm alone.

The 2nd tornado, an F2, was 300 yards wide and traveled just 3 miles. It hit in Clay township and N.E. of Beaman. Two homes and a barn were unroofed. Lumber from the barn was driven into the walls of the homes.

The 3rd tornado, also an F2, traveled N.E. from the Buck Creek area of Bremer County. Six farms were damaged, and the debris scattered for a mile.

The 993mb surface low near Waterloo that went on to sink the Edmund Fitzgerald 11/9/1975

The 4th tornado, an F2, hit 6 miles S.E. of Washington. Seven farm buildings were destroyed on one farm.

The 5th tornado, ranked F2, hit 8 miles N.E. of Iowa City. A home was damaged, and a machine shed moved off its foundation. An estimated 40 pigs were killed in a confinement building that was destroyed.

Another tornado, an F1, struck an area from near Toronto all the way up to Maquoketa. I believe this tornado actually started on the S.E edge of Lowden by the damage I remember seeing. My weather station recorded a wind gust of 68 mph from a westerly direction during the storm, and 0.87" of rain fell in a short period of time. My barograph recorded a 0.30" drop in air pressure and a similar rise in just a couple of minutes as the storm passed by. All in all, an impressive weather event for so late in the season. (Steve Gottschalk)

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UP, UP, AND AWAY...

After our weekend wake-up call that brought lows in the teens, it is up, up, and away for temperatures all around the Midwest the remainder of this week. 60s are expected Friday and some areas will reach 70 Saturday, close to the established records. The significant turn around is due to a realignment of the 500mb jet stream, which is expected to morph into a significant ridge. You can watch the process unfold below, with the trough and its remaining cold lifting out of the east, allowing warm air to flood the nation.

The next animation shows how much below normal temperatures are replaced with ones that are well above normal. That's a heck of a reversal.

The model average below of temperatures using the NAM, GFS, and RAP shows how readings steadily warm from a low of 26 Tuesday to a maximum of 71 Saturday in Moline. Notice there is very good consistency in the amplitude of high temperature solutions. That means this is likely to be a thing.

Saturday the 15th is likely to be the warmest day, with readings areawide up to 25 degrees warmer than normal.

For some perspective, at the NWS office in NW Davenport, there never has been a 70 degree high on November 15th. Only 2 other days after that has it been 70 or above.

In Moline, records go back to 1871, a much larger sampling and at that location 4 days in November have reached 70. Either way, it's a rare to get a 70 so late in the year and we should be close!

By Saturday evening, a cold front will swing through, dropping readings to more seasonal levels to close out the weekend. With little to no moisture to work with, a dry frontal passage is expected. In fact, the EURO shows no rain through the day next Monday.

You will also note that as time goes on, temperatures steadily lower thanks to a couple of fronts, one this weekend and another the following weekend. This is a trend that is well teleconnected with the EURO MJO cycling into a colder phase 7 (departing the warmth of phase 6). Late November and early December have the potential to be significantly colder.

To get into a more wintry pattern, one thing has to change and that is the demise of the deep trough over Alaska. Notice the blue over Alaska the 21st. That's low pressure forcing Pacific air into the Midwest's weather pattern

The EURO weeklies eliminate that by early December and replace it with high pressure in orange. The trough is displaced NW of Hawaii. This would open the door for Polar air masses that are much colder to enter the lower 48. There is reason to believe this will happen, especially around or after Thanksgiving. It will take some time.

This is what the EURO mean of the weeklies shows for snow from roughly November 25th through December 26th. Still showing a similar trend as yesterday.

I will close with this. It's one of many images sent to me by friends of the site of last night's northern lights. This is from Kevin Walters of Conrad, Iowa. The northern lights put on a show with two incoming coronal mass ejections (CMEs) igniting geomagnetic storm conditions. They were visible in many parts of the Midwest and my climate man Steve Gottschalk in Lowden, Iowa says they are the best he has seen since 1989. Space weather forecasters anticipate that geomagnetic activity may intensify to strong (G3) conditions and could be around again tomorrow night.