GRAND FORKS, ND (trfnews.i234.me) The National Weather Service in Grand Forks has a detailed weather briefing of our August climate and September forecast.
* Video: National Weather Service
hi this is Carl with a weather and climate briefing that will cover what occurred during the month of August and an outlook into September let’s start by looking back at the month of August these are daily departure from normal temperatures throughout the month of August at the Fargo Airport the red bars represent days that were warmer than normal and blue bars represent days that were colder than normal the first two days of August were pretty chilly then most of the next 11 days turned much warmer with the rest of August a mix of some days that were warmer and colder than normal this is another way to look at August daily temperature data from the Fargo Airport this time daily highs are shown at the top of the red bars and daily lows are shown at the bottom of the blue bars the highest August temperature at Fargo Airport was 93 degrees which occurred on both the 12th and 13th meanwhile the coldest August temperature in Fargo was 40 degrees on August 2nd that 40 degree temperature established a new record low for August 2nd for the Fargo Airport however it was even colder on August 2nd for portions of Northwest Minnesota near the town of Goodridge Minnesota it dipped down to the freezing mark at 32 degrees imagine that for early August here are the warmest August temperatures for select locations across the area Devil’s Lake hit 98 degrees on August 12th here are the coldest August temperatures for the same locations instead of daily temperature values let’s look at how August turned out in its entirety basically all these sites were pretty close to normal some were a little higher and some were a little lower here are the August precipitation totals for these locations again there was a lot of variability as is common during the summer thunderstorm season similar to July Devil’s like had the lowest precipitation total out of these locations this chart shows the number of severe weather warnings issued each day throughout the month of August the number of severe thunderstorm warnings is shown in orange and the number of tornado warnings shown in red only two tornado warnings were issued in August in fact most of August was actually pretty quiet however it did turn more active to close out the month especially on August 26th in August twenty-seventh large hail fell across portions of southern Cass and clay counties in the early morning hours of August 26 a hail scar from this event was visible on satellite imagery days later the hail scar appears brown on this image and as a result of vast crop damage two tornadoes occurred across Northwest Minnesota on August 26th into August 27th the image on the right is velocity data from the Mayville radar when storms hit the winger Minnesota area showing wind speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour just above the surface the winger grain elevator was extensively damaged by this tornado thanks to Tracy Monson for this picture the Pine Lake Minnesota campground was also hit by a tornado thank you Dan Johnson for this picture August will be remembered for its many days with smoke the state of Minnesota issued air quality alerts on multiple days throughout the month of August this may seem like a lot of alerts but looking back to 2012 it’s not that uncommon 2012 and 2015 were also big years for wildfires in the western United States in Canada this led to vast areas of smoke over eastern North Dakota and Minnesota for several days speaking of fires staff from the National Weather Service in Grand Forks had a chance to observe a prescribed burn near for town Minnesota on August 22nd this photo shows the morning burn briefing the photo shows that despite the green foliage the fire was able to spread lastly this photo shows firefighters in a helicopter helping start the fire and monitor its progress now let’s look ahead into the month of September during September normal highs and lows continue to decrease as well as normal precipitation we will also lose about an hour and 40 minutes of day length in September heat humidity and thunderstorms start becoming less common and September can bring some windy days hazy skies from the area harvest chilly mornings with Frost and days with high fire danger this is the Climate Prediction centers September temperature outlook for most of eastern North Dakota and the Northwest quarter of Minnesota there are equal chances for above normal or below normal temperatures this is the precipitation outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for the month of September again for most of eastern North Dakota and the northwest corner of Minnesota there are there are equal chances for above normal or below normal precipitation here’s our latest photo of the month contest winner it shows a uniquely Minnesota moment featuring Bemidji Paul Bunyan and babe statues courtesy of Laurie tell Anderson thanks for the photo Laurie that concludes this weather and climate briefing and thank you for listening
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: In-Depth August-September Forecast Briefing
