From his home in Roseville, Mr. Bruce Watson a Consulting meteorologist who has been chatting with us off and on throughout the storm period both yesterday and today and during the snowfall that was experienced primarily in the Southeastern part of the state on Wednesday of this past week. We invite you to call and share in your observations of the storm and your questions as well for Bruce Watson and we'll spend the hour talking about this this rather unusual weather development this week Bruce. We understand first of all that there have been a few records set as a result of our weather this past day or so. Can you Enlighten us on that a little bit? Yeah. That's right Bob. Of course the big record that was set was the record amount of snowfall. We had the toll for the entire the grand total for the entire storm is over 35 inches at Minneapolis st. Paul Airport, which farThis is the record for the Armistice taste or back in 1940. That's very close. Is it not to the total average snowfall we received for the whole winter? That's correct RX snowfall averages 42 inches over the Long Haul. So that's just about 7 inches short of what we would normally get an entire winter. Do you think this one is going to be on the record books for quite a while? Well, I think so. It's going to be awfully hard to break this record for a good long time. Of course, you never know. You could always break it the following week, but it's not very likely there's certainly will stay in the top ten lists. They probably for the next 500 years, at least I am inviting phone calls from listeners. And of course, I don't give out the phone number that's not very smart of me in the Minneapolis st. Paul area 2276 thousand is the telephone number to call if you're listening in other parts of Minnesota. We have a toll-free number and that is one 865 297Zero zero those numbers again in the Twin Cities 2276 thousand and outside the Twin Cities area 1 865 29700. Now, I wonder Bruce it seems to me that that first snowfall that we had the one that affected the Twin Cities area primarily was a very narrow band of snow. And then the one that we had yesterday was a much more widespread storm. How do you explain that meteorologically? What was the difference between those two? Okay, here's what happened. They were really part 1 and part 2 and this is very typical. What happened is that you had this low pressure area out over the Far Western United States. And of course you had high pressure off to the East and we were still under the high pressure when the first snow hit back. Our barometer reading was some of the highest value we have some of the highest values of the year. And what happens is that ahead of the storm and again the storm like I always say is a big Whirlpool that is moving. There's a spinning counterclockwise. And what happened is that we had some very warm wet are fed up ahead of the storm in this area was Set up over the very cold high pressure area that was sitting over us and that gave us the original storm. And of course that's no was really sort of heavy flurries assumed was very very sparse as far as water content very flaky and then the main thrust of the storm hit and of course, this is where you pumped up your very deep amounts of moisture and you had your very intense winds and everything. And so that was part 2 of the storm and the second part that was much more moisture in the air. So the water content of still was much greater. Hmm. Well, there's a number of people on the telephone Bruce who have comments and questions for you. So, let's see if we can conference the two of the two of you together and make this work. Good afternoon. You're on the air does that mean? Yes, sir? I'm calling from the st. Louis Park snowpack out here. Okay, and is mr. Watson the one that was on last autumn. He may very well have been right. Yeah, didn't you forecast about a normal winter at that time? Yeah, I sure did one thing. I always say is that with with very little exception. I cannot forecast extremes, right? I think you're actually what I was wondering is how do you account for the extraordinary huge storms are just staggered the whole United States in this January, which is rather unusual. I saw a map in the morning paper where it seemed like half the northern hemisphere is covered by snow this year, right? This is a very interesting and unusual anomaly is the fact that so much North America is covered with snow and this has been true for quite some time. I went up earlier this month and gave a talk at the convention the national sunflower Association in Bismarck, and I took the bus up I went to see the countryside and there was snow all the way between here in Bismarck and in my talk one thing I Looking into was the snow cover across North America and across the world, especially in the crop growing regions. And one thing that I told the people as a convention about is that there's just a good snow cover everywhere and we've the the hemisphere is added to that sense all the almost entire Soviet Union is covered with snow and I might say that's a pretty good depth of foot or more and of course most of Canada and over half United States was covered with snow. And of course China, even though it's colder they do not have snow which is typical. They generally don't get much snow cover in China, but the parts of the northern hemisphere that normally gets some still have an awful lot of snow Europe to all of Europe England Germany Poland the entire mass of Europe that normally has some small the ground has lots of snow. Is there is there any explanation for that or is it just the luck of the draw this time? Well, I suppose there is an explanation. It's the way that the upper win the Great West weaker and has been flowing around. The hemisphere is brought large amounts of moisture and I might say a lot of storminess to these various places. Okay? Well, we have another caller with a question. So let's go to our next listener. Hi, you're on the air. Hello. Yeah, i don't actually have a question for Bruce but I've been sitting here listening to public radio last night and today and hearing about how bad it is to have such heavy snowfall in the area and and my wife and I are having a great time. We're enjoying it and we may be like to hear a little bit more of the optimistic view. Well glad to hear from you. What have you been doing? Well, we've been doing some cross country skiing and some little bit of walking in the snow down around the creeks and around the lakes and just enjoying it. Well, that's good. Yeah, we're working this afternoon. So we got our self shoveled out. We're hoping to be able to make it to work. I think that obviously what we try to do is to let people know that there's a dangerous storm coming so that if they do have to travel there prepared and obviously that's the role of the media to let people know that this is coming so that the possibility of damage and loss of life is kept to a minimum sure. That's that's understandable and I'm that's part of your mandate without a doubt. And it's good to hear that but maybe once in a while, you can throw in a little bit of an optimistic Viewpoint. Sure. Well, I hope that you're enjoying your skis. It certainly is the kind of opportunity that we don't get very often to get out and participate as long as you are dressed appropriately and so on and so forth. Yep, that's important. Great. Okay. Well, we'll we'll move on to another listener then thank you very much for saying I might comment on that. I'm younger Mystic site. In fact, of course. This winter is much more of a normal winter than the last two Winters were the last two Winters actually caused quite a bit of recreational problems economic dislocation in the state because we didn't have any snow to speak of so actually we're doing much better this year in being more of a typical Minnesota winter and this is good because if things get too abnormal, then your you throw everything out of whack because there are so many things that people plant plan on for the winter time economically and Rick Recently that if you don't have this kind of winter storms passing through them many people suffer economically it throws the whole economy out of whack. Okay, thanks. We'll move onto my listener. Hi, you're on the air. I have a question or a comment for Bruce. Maybe we should congratulate him. You know last time we talked was what the December 26th and he did predict about 45 inches of snow didn't he is going to have a normal winter. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah, so that was pretty good. But I also have another question on that program. You did mention something about a four-year cycle of Stormy Summers without a four or 40 40 years 40 years cycle and okay now one other comment all of this snow packing down on the ice. I live on Eagle Lake out here in Maple Grove the other day two days ago. I stepped off a dock into six inches of water on top of the ice. Maybe we should could you explain a little bit about that may be worn skiers and snowboarders about that. Yes, and also I might say another a chemistry thing is musician or good for homeowners. We have lice insulation. The roofs of this Twin Cities are covered with insulation the form of snow but so is the ice and the thing is that snow on the ground right now has about a 821 ratio of air to water so that you actually have mostly are in that snowpack and this makes excellent insulation as a result. A lot of the ice under the snow has not gotten very thick. So as a result when you step on it you break right through because the lake simply isn't losing any heat the like many many of the lakes are very very warm because of all this insulation. That's kind of surprising because we did have those three weeks or at least two weeks in a row of extremely cold temperature is 20 25 30 below and you'd think that everything would have been completely Frozen up not really because it will clean out we're talking about two things on the large lakes actually the large lake froze after the November 18th storm, but the smaller Lakes were frozen well before that so all the small lakes had a good quote insulation on before it really turned cold. You may recall we got quite a snowstorm on November 18th back. We've had some continuous snow cover every since then and so the small lakes the Ice is very very thin. So one should be careful about hitting out there putting ice houses on them or anything like that. Why are you better be very careful this winter? It's about a quarter past 12:00 noon were talking with Consulting meteorologist Bruce Watson and we have more listeners with comments and questions. Hello. You're on the air. Bruce as I recall in the fall certain weather system sort of set themselves up over the country and that that sort of determines our weather throughout the winter and could you discuss that sort of last year versus this year sort of two completely different years. Well, first of all, I wouldn't say there's anything special or false setting up what's going to happen. The following winter. The thing is the atmosphere does or it does display quite a bit of conservatism in the way it behaves very often. You will have the same kind of a pattern for 90 days or even a half year or sometimes even for the better part of a year so that your weather does tend to run the same way for an awful long time. And of course a lot of this forms the basis of long range forecasting. Just really green eye on the atmosphere not to change much. But then also it just being the changes which can also be done. But the atmosphere does set these things up as you recall last one. Of course, we had very little snow and we were just in a pattern that didn't bring us any snow in this winter leave the pattern has remained quite stable, especially since mid-november when we did have a very definite switch consequently following up on that Bruce does the fact of all the snow that we have had now imply anything at all about the spring or the summer that really no none whatsoever. There's just no relationship at all between a hard winter and the following summer when you say these statistics it comes out about 50/50. Thank you very much. Thank you for calling 2 to 7 is the phone number in Minneapolis? St. Paul if you have a question for a Bruce Watson outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area the toll-free number. Is one 865 29700 we have another caller with a comment. Hi, you're on the air. I'm calling from Duluth. We had thunder and lightning associated with the storm last night. And this is a little unusual for winter, isn't it? Is it just because of the large amount of moisture and with some other reason for that? Well the right amount of moisture had a great deal to do with it because you need a lot of moisture to set up a thunderstorm. I might say that there was a thunderstorm here in Roseville also, and there were thunderstorms reported over most the Southeastern Minnesota. So I guess we had a line of thunderstorms that must have extended right along about the Minnesota Wisconsin line thunderstorms seem to have became more common in recent years. I would say in the last 30 years there seem to be a lot more thunderstorm reports in the were before that now I don't know if this is due to more thunderstorms or to the fact that we have better reporting. It's a real Every bit almost seems like I mean the thing is that we even we look at the weather bureau statistics. You'll find it in December and January thunderstorms were really not heard of until around 1948 1949. And now they seem to be almost commonplace. We seem to have a lot of under storms in December and January. So maybe we've run into some kind of a small switch in the climatic regime a small climatic change. I almost think that we have because they say even we look at the Good Records seems like it's only been in the last 30 35 years that we've got brimming with your thunderstorms. So you're saying that it might be something like pollution or Trista travel and could cause that well, I don't know about pollution. That's a possibility. We are anytime you have a large power plant. You're putting out an awful lot of electricity and a lot of us electricity is on par with that in a thunderstorm. Yes. Thing if there is any relationship at all, I would say it's a very large part plan from the electrical charges. They put into the air this is possible, but I wouldn't I'm a long way from saying that that is the cause but that could be part of it. Another thing that I found curious Bruce in reading the radar summaries that were coming over from the National Weather Service last night was not only the reports of thunder and lightning but also sleet and freezing precipitation and this with with temperatures in the teens and maybe low 20s. Now, I didn't realize that you could have anything but snow when it got that cold. Yeah. Well your thing Bob on the ground we were below freezing and of course if you go up to 1015 thousand feet of also above freezing but thing is that around three four thousand feet a storm system a this big Whirlpool of are can pull in some above freezing. Are you have to bear in mind one thing that gets three or four? Feet the wind air can move much faster than it can down here at the ground because of the ground we flow is restricted by friction in the slow the wind down so that we can't pull in warm you're off to the south of us. Whereas in Rapid three four thousand seat. We wind the air can really move and as a result we pulled in some area that was probably around 40 degrees Fahrenheit and as a result when the snowflakes fell through that he melted and then they froze again, of course when they got in the layer near the ground and in fact, this is how you make sleep. We have another caller with a question for Bruce Watson. Hi, you're on the air. Yes. I'd be interested to know how they determine the snow fall when the wind is blowing like it has been what's the method how do they know which is just blown snow on which is falling they do their best. That's about all I can say. So it is very difficult to measure and one thing you always have to keep in mind when you measure it is to look around you to see if what is the gauge looks to be representative of what has fallen around and sometimes if you happen to be lets say in a particular location, you might have to disregard some of the snow. It's in the OR disregarded all together and go out to a representative spot a spot that looks like it has about the average amount of snow for the whole area and you put the ring gauge upside down and push it down and then call like that that's naplan melted. I thought maybe they had intricate way, but I know there's no magic way, too. Again, it is difficult and it takes a good skill Observer to do a good job in measuring so far. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for calling we have another caller. Hi, you're on the air. Hello. I'm miles goals are from the st. Cloud area. They work in rural Stearns County in the farmers out there use a dense fog and summertime to predict snow totals snowstorms and winter and yesterday's storm was right on the day. Is there any correlation between these two events? Probably now, I went tonight. We have an awful lot of these old what they're saying that this is typical of your are many whether things are related. If you count the number of let's say thunderstorms near their tell something about the number of snowfalls going to get the following year. There's quite a few songs like that and if it works for the farmers, maybe that's a good way to do it, but scientifically I can't get all see any connection. Well, that's too bad. Whether we're doing at the cheap way up here. Yes, it works. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you for calling the toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440. And that number is open from time to time. If you're listening outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area have a question for Bruce Watson. We have another caller. Hello. You're on the air. Hello. I'm calling from South Minneapolis Bruce. I wonder if you've dealt developed any future flood predictions out of all of this for next spring. I'll hang up and listen. I'm not really in the flood forecasting business at all. But it does stand to reason that with all the snow on the ground that we do have a tremendous amount amount of moisture available for a lot of runoff. And if the spring is anywhere near a little bit above normal, I think we're going to see some awfully high water and I think it's something that I'm sure the weather service has their eye on but with this much snow on the ground and the potential to add Well, it's eat today is January 23rd, and we should be getting a lot of snow yet for about the next 80 days. So we do have the potential for an awful lot of water on the ground come spring we received. You said Bruce 35 inches just this week in the Twin Cities, right? Great. Okay. What do you think? We will get what should we get in an average winter for the rest of the year? Well here the average winter. We would still have about 22 inches to go 22 to go right now. That's just if normal weather holds up and I have been projecting that we actually expected there were going to get the bulk of the original 45 inches of snow that I forecast that we would get it early and we would get a late and so I do think yet. We will have a snowy March so that means that if he had together put everything together even maybe even go conservative just say it'll be normal we should go We have some problems with running. Okay, another caller with the question. Hi, you're on the air. Yes. I'm really mystified by predictions one hears of long-term trends Trends which lasts maybe several years or even a decade or two. I wonder how meteorologist come up with Trends which are very long term. Okay, the way it's done is just simply by studying the climatology Lo looking at expectancy. All things are changing. And of course when you do this, it's very important to have very accurate observations for my work. I use the old record from the military record from Fort Snelling which was taken between 1819 and 1892. And also the record made by the Aiken family at Farmington from 1885 right to the present. It's Valley Farmington has only been three observers in the station's always been the same site and it's almost climb a largely identical 2004. It's snowing. So I use those records in the state climatologist. Suppose to be could be because they're free. They can family's done just a marvelous job and observing the weather over the years. And if the analyze those very carefully you can sort out these various regimes of set themselves up. For instance. We had the very very hot summers of the 1930s. If you look at the records, you'll find it about 80% of the times of temperatures gone over hundreds of Twin Cities was between 1930 and 1939. If you look at the 1880s, you'll see that most of the cold records at least up until the 1970s were set in the 1880s the also find that most of the warmer kober's occurred in a period a 40-year period in the ending about 1960 then October's lat Kohler and they've gotten much cooler course in recent years almost every October we have now is below normal. So it's pretty safe to assume that most of your co-workers for quite a while. I going to be below normal. What does it This isn't how it's done and I might stay on longer basis people look at records as far as pawns concerned the following deposit Celtic in Lake beds and things like that. Yeah tree rings all these things identify cycles and these long-term regime. What does a storm like this do to the averages does it change that that fork that long range forecast very much or is it just a little blip this is just a little bit right? Yeah. Well, if you have any questions or comments about this little blip of a storm that we've had we have a couple of phone lines open in the Minneapolis st. Paul area. The phone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand if you have a question for Consulting meteorologist, Bruce Watson outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area. Our toll-free number is 1-866-376-8255 were getting a busy signal earlier. This might be a good time to try because I see some lines are open and people are taking advantage of that right now. Let's go to another caller. Hi, you're on the air. Yeah. I know. This is not Bruce especially but there's a lot of snow out here in the suburbs. A lot of snow piled up on the roof. Could you tell me how much how much snow pressure can average residential structure take up on the roof, you know, when you start getting three or four feet dial up here and drift quite a bit. Although I don't know the exact number, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to get some of the snow off. Roof, there really is an awful lot on it and I'm just trying to think I was just going over the some of the design limits a couple months ago, but it's passed out of my head and I hate to put over their number of them that are percent sure is correct, but it certainly would not be a bad idea to take some of the snow off the roof because we might get more and of course, I'm sure that every house that's built isn't quite designed right up to par. You know, I mean, they do make mistakes, but I I haven't taken any off of my roof yet, but I've been thinking about it. Why do you want to do is be very careful, of course because it's a lot cheaper to have your roof caving a little bit and it is for you to topple off for what the ladder and get hurt. So I would do a very great check carefully you might want to Just look at your individual situation. One thing I should say though. Watch out for your little sheds and garages and things like that because they're not built nearly as well as a house. So those things I'm sure we probably have had some call that from already. Okay? Okay. Thank you very much interestingly enough. I've just been handed something that the National Weather Service put out Bruce and it talks about some of the weight of the snow and it talks about the snow shoveling and so on and talking about the weight of snow on roofs and let me just review some of these facts put out by the National Weather Service. It says in the Twin Cities area, the storm has dropped over 19 inches of snow while we know that the weight of the snow is approximately 5 .7 pounds per square foot, but that does not include the weight of the snow from the storm on Wednesday. So if you have to shovel in areas that have not been cleaned previously the weight could be more on the order of 17.3 pounds per square foot now about the weight of the snow on the roof this past storm alone has placed close. Three tons of snow on an average sized 1,000 square foot roof. That information handed me just a few moments ago by Arthur Haines. Thank you Arthur and we have more listeners with questions. Go ahead, please you're on the air. Hello. I was wondering if sled dog race He's progressing. I don't know. I spent a life spent a lot of time at you lie, and I'm sure that it's going off without a hitch because in hilly this they would laugh at us for really talking about this being a lot of snow. I mean up there. This is just common placement winner. Nice pose. Well, we can be heard in Ely. Maybe we'll maybe we'll get a report from a listener up in that area that great. Thank you very much during this our 1-800 6-5 29700 the number four people living outside the Twin Cities area another caller with the question. Hi, you're on the air. Thank you. Yes. I was wondering if the meteorologists has heard about this alignment of the planets and what effect that has on the weather. Well, I'm certainly very familiar with the so-called Jupiter affect. What happens is that every hundred seventy nine years old. We planets all are pretty much on one side of the Sun and this is going to happen. Of course this coming March while already. In fact most the planets are On one side of the Sun and with some people worried about is the fact that course each planet what space and it has a pull so that all the planets are pulling at the Sun at the same time and they worry that it's going to cause the sunspots or something, but other people are doing all the worrying aren't scientists there actually is no evidence whatsoever. And if you take the measurements you find that the planets are so small compared to the Sun even Jupiter and Saturn that their pull is almost insignificant. I was reading in a little publication put out by the Science Museum of Minnesota that the total title pull on the sun will be one millimeter and that's just a very small fraction of an inch. Well actually is the effect on the sun will be very very minimal. Now the effect on the earth should know Mostly insignificant there is no connection whatsoever. No evidence at all of any connection between this alignment of the planets and our weather that is really ludicrous is it is just no way that our weather isn't affected by the facts of the planets are all on the same side of the sun. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for calling. It's about 27 minutes before one o'clock Bruce Watson with us today and we have another caller with a question. Hi, you're on the air. All right, Bruce. They've referred to you as a Consulting meteorologist. I was wondering who you do your Consulting to be it on agriculture services or who? Yeah, I do an awful lot of work with agriculture. I write a whether half of a newsletter which includes my raw long-range outlooks and also various topics discussion some things that are In the news on meteorology this goes out to about 30,000 farmers in the midwest put out to egg Mark. I write the weather column for the farmer magazine and I do a lot of just general articles every so often for various publications. Of course, I have my monthly column in the morning trivial. I also do a fair amount of work for engineering companies. One thing I've been in his working with computer programmers ever since I started back in 1956. I came online just as we computers were coming online and I happen to work for the military time. And so I still do a lot of if modeling work taking atmospheric phenomena and putting them into models. I see so you're self-employed then right and I do quite a bit of work also with attorneys. I'm law cases investigating storms. In fact, I imagine we will run into some problems some problems here in determining whether a lot of the sheds were knocked down with Say by you though the By the snow and very often they get three complex because you do get winning the snow at the same time. Sometimes uh-huh. So and of course any kind of severe weather generally causes some Havoc with saw somebody in very often actually determine, you know, whether the particular willetta phenomena like heavy rain was an act of God or was it something we should have been anticipated and we can expect all the time. So, I guess that's where I do most of my work. I must say that I do an awful lot of miscellaneous work, even for private citizens and such. Well, there's a few people that have a problem all the time. So I do do work for just the man on the street to the hamster running some kind of weather problem. It sounds very enjoyable and I'm sure you're really are enjoying your work for sure up the good work. Thanks. Okay. We have another caller with a question. Let's go to that person. Hi, you're on the air. Hi. I'm calling from Minneapolis and I've got kind of a bulky bird. Under here. I've had for a couple of years and it seems that any time I would tap it that it will move in One Direction about three or four tenths of an inch right now. It's not just a small, you know fluctuation, but it is quite large right? Is that normal? Yes. This is one thing that has puzzled already the Head puzzle instrument makers for many many many centuries. Well, I shouldn't have that many many thousands of years, but it's actually for sounds freeze people have tried to make a parameter since it was it wouldn't stick but it's just the nature of the instrument to have this what is called hysteresis and the only way to get a good reading from most parameters is to tap them and when you tap them and you'll get a correct reading some parameters have more hysteresis in others yours being large me well have a large pressure element or something and maybe more Three system. So that's why he'll chop more than some other parameters. If you pay a lot of money, you can buy a bra matter that the you don't have to tap friends and family Barret Graf the recording type right and that kind I don't have to tap that because that has all sorts of Gadgets in there to compensate for the hysteresis. What does it have to constantly? I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is. I would have to go to go to the manual look it up. Oh, I see. Thank you. Okay, we have another caller with a question. Hi, you're on the air. Yeah many times from Minneapolis. Could you comment on whether Generation by Tesla's superpowers? What was that again or now whether generation using Tesla coils? I'm sorry. I still don't get you you know generating whether using Tesla coils by both the Russians and the u.s. I think I believe working on it generating whether by some kind of a coil right is this making whirlwinds or what? Well, that's one of them. The other one is just causing storms and and wizard. Well, I would say that it's again this fall is ludicrous category that anybody could make a machine that would affect the weather in a large scale. You can affect weather and a small scale there have been machines built to build a little Vortex has perhaps it would be possible to generate tornadoes. That might be within the grant grab of mankind with I don't know we'd want to do that because the tornado would hit the immediate area that you're working on in other words, you could you might be able to make machine that we generated title locally, but you couldn't do one you could you could Any kind of machine that we do it somewhere else and I just say that's possible and that's we've seen him you that it will it might be possible to make machine like that. But the Russians have made some awfully tall claims about being able to control the weather and I've from time to time I bought the Soviet Life Magazine. I like to buy it to see what their attitudes are and I can't believe some of the stuff they write in there about whether if there are articles that they have about whether control are as bad as everything else. You can't believe a word that magazine that would say because they're just very tall tales and it's very difficult to do anything beyond perhaps increasing rainfall from cloud seeding, but you just cannot make any large-scale changes in the weather with many kind of Vice or any process and it has come up with yet. It's about 20 minutes before one o'clock. We have word from a listener in Ely. Now the dog races in Ely have been cancelled today postponed until tomorrow and Monday, but the indoor activities are on for tonight. So that's the latest that we have from a listener in Ely surprise bonding to a call from someone a little earlier in the broadcast. We have another listener of the question. Hi, you're on the air. Hello. I'm calling from Cannon Falls. I wanted to know the relationship between the jet stream and the weather and what effect the jet stream is having on our weather at this time. Okay, I guess first of all, we should say that the jet stream is the weather. Basically what the jet stream is is the location around the Northern Hemisphere with a west wind is blowing the fastest what happens is because the sun is shining and because we have gravity and because the Earth is spinning this sets a large world. We're blowing around the polar regions called The circumpolar Vortex Circle meaning around polar meaning the polar region Vortex mean Whirlpool. So we have this big Whirlpool of air that always is blowing and we'll blow as long as Earth turns and Sun Shines and where this wind is blowing. The fastest is called jet stream. Actually, every storm for instance has its own little jet stream going around at we experienced that in this storm is you recall. We had a real stiff easterly wind yesterday. And then when I went out late in the evening around midnight, the wind was very light was only about 10 miles an hour and then of course about five six o'clock this morning started really pick up again, and I was blowing fast. So right now we're in that little jet stream with lows around they storm system. And of course the storm system that we have is moving in this West win and depending on where your storms such as this one are located. Will cause the great Wesley current if you make a measurement at any given instant it will Define a snake-like current going around the Northern Hemisphere actually course what's happening is that you're getting these whirlpools of air that makes storms up moving in this vast Circle polar vortex. And of course When You observe it against don't you get a snake-like pattern because your eggs to complement the wind together. He Stormwind plus the West Wind and when you add those together you get this Meandering and where the Meandering when is the greatest is where the jet stream is. So the jet stream looks like a big fast wind right in the core of the circumpolar vortex rolling around in Northern Hemisphere and yet is the weather the thing is if you have a storm system coming in you're going to move up here from the south and normally the air will move up. Oh 500 miles. So when a storm comes Then your will get here. They've been sitting over. Let's say Missouri or Illinois and as the storm system moves by Will typically get here that comes off of Southern Manitoba Western Ontario and the upper winds. The weight of the jet stream is blowing was fast Corwin. It's coming out of the Southwest then that will tend to bring in warm air Aloft and was blowing all the Northwest they'll tend to bring in cold dry air Aloft. Yeah the to superimpose on each other to either give you very stable error on stable are you know generally ahead of the storm you have one of warming are coming in and they're clearly robustly get overturning and you get the snow or rain or thunderstorms behind it. You generally get very stable here and clear skies. So the he just seemed is really it doesn't cause the whether it is the whether Thank you. Okay. Thank you for calling and thank you Bruce. Okay, we have another listener with the question. Hi, you're on the air. Hi. There's two things. I want to say one was I think that this lizard is a great opportunity for anybody in the city to appreciate nature without leaving the city and I was out on skis last night and saw a lot of stuck cars with you accents and stuff. So there's a lot of other side of that for people who are driving to anything I want to know is when do I have to take my car out of South Minneapolis? Yeah, probably. Okay. Let me let me check that. They have declared a snow emergency in both Minneapolis. And st. Paul and Minneapolis the snow emergency routes. We piled starting nine o'clock tonight the East-West residential streets eight o'clock tomorrow morning the north-south residential streets eight o'clock Monday morning, if you're in the southwest experimental District. The north-south residential tomorrow at 8 and the East-West residential Monday at 8:00 that Southwest experimental is a little different than the rest in st. Paul as long as we're into this now, but I do with st. Paul they're going to be going on the north-south residential streets this afternoon until they're finished which should be around midnight probably then starting tomorrow at 8:00. St. Paul will begin plowing East-West residential Soul. Those are the details on the snow emergencies. I think we'll move on to another listener with a question for Bruce Watson on whether hi you're on the air. I'm calling from Houston. Why does the wind is turned clockwise around a high pressure and counterclockwise around a low-pressure Okay. The reason for this is basically the easy way to look at it is to back up and go like I set that the Earth is spinning around and it's course. It's the spinning from what Westen. And this spinning motion along with the sun shining in the force of gravity causes the air to blow in whirlpools and all these whirlpools because the earth going from the attorney from west to east these whirlpools all spin counterclockwise and those make up the storms that we experience the oil pressure areas. The fact that these are spinning counterclockwise means that in between where are has piled up we are has to pour out clockwise and that's why and of course where is piled up high and deep you have a lot of are there in this is a high-pressure area and you can look upon the high pressure just as the your that's piled up between the lows but if you do an analysis and you put down a lot of little car clockwise whirlpools, this means that are coming out of a high has to be spinning counterclockwise. I'm sorry. Likewise it has to be spinning opposite to the whirlpools be because it's surrounded by Whirlpool, very high pressure is Will pool around and of low pressure. So you have to come on come on clockwise from high pressure. Yes, and this is all due to the rotation of the earth. If your ass rotate the other way than everything would turn backwards from what it does now. Well, we're glad the Earth doesn't spin backwards because that would make things even more difficult when things are from the east coast to the Atlantic and across New England and from that direction. We still get rain and snow and sleet. Okay, we have another listener with a question for you Bruce. Let's go to that person. Oh, hi you're on the air. Hi. My question has to do with somewhat related to the Jupiter effect that I heard earlier, but I have heard another weather person talking about the increase in sunspot activity. And I just wonder if that does have an effect on with her. All right people have made studies that have sold correlations with sunspots. And whether II don't know that there are particularly powerful influences, but of course you have to bear in mind that the Earth and the Sun are really part of one system. Yeah, you can't divorce the Earth from Far From the Sun but the relationships that would say generally are not Who else can establish other words can see sunspot activity and then he'd be able to make a forecast. This is still in great developmental stage that would say but it might be accentuated by having the Jupiter affect. All these planets are too small really the Jupiter effect does not come from the world of science. I think it mostly comes from the world of astrology. I think maybe we should have an astrologer and the radio to answer any of those questions because the group that really has no basis whatsoever in science. Then they are not lined up. Well, you're lined up but it doesn't the gravitational forces involved are just too small to have any significant effects on weather on Earth. I see thank you 12 minutes before one o'clock Bruce Watson is with us today by telephone from his home and we are taking your calls and comments about the weather. Hello. You're on the air. Hello. I'm calling from st. Paul first is it is it accurate that these two stores will be considered one in the record books or when they be considered two separate ones. And secondly, it's my understanding that three records were set the most snow 42 anywhere for any month and for any single snowstorm. What would the previous records and what years were they said? Okay, we previous record for January. I believe was thirty five point three inches And the previous record for the amount of snow in any given month was 40 inches and let's see if I have the years here. I'm referring to my new book. I wrote the Minnesota weather almanac and I did have it in one of them. Let's see, which additional is in looking something up in your own book? Uh, yeah. I see I am looking at 75 here and I do have the records but I don't have the years that it occurred but it was the record for any given month is 40 inches and their Envy record for January was 35.3. I'm not sure if we if we had 40 inches yet this month. I haven't heard I'm not sure about it. I believe that the National Weather Service indicated that that record was also broken, but I can't tell you what the number is we must be over 40 inches for the month because we do have some snow falls for this then the first part of his question will the storms that we had the snow falls we had rather on Wednesday and Friday be counted in the record books as one storm or as to well, it should become as one star in my opinion. I think they probably will I did talk to people The Weather Service. Tonight the man that was on duty and I suggested that you should be coming to this one because it was part of one grand system. It was sort of part 1 and part 2 so I would think if he would count it all as one. I can't speak for the Weather Service the way with a would do it, but I would count it as one. Well, we may hear from them later in the week as to just exactly what their decision is on that nine minutes before one o'clock. We have more people with questions. Hi, you're on the air. Is there any recurring pattern of climatic aberrations after major volcanic eruptions No, in fact, somebody wrote an article for Science magazine about a year or so ago showing that Earth suggesting that maybe volcanic eruptions are due to changes in weather patterns. It turns out there's an awful lot of Volcanoes have erupted after this been after there had been some rather strong changes in climate one example to it was the explosion Krakatoa nine months before Krakatoa blew up the weather in this part of the country in the midwest got very cold. We were in that very close regime in the 1880s and this actually started nine months before Krakatoa and investigating other storms. They found that there were rather strong climatic changes before the eruption of volcanoes, and I don't know what the mechanism would be and I don't believe they offered any of the article but I think it does serve to show that you can't take volcanic eruptions and treatment whether change to them and and now yeah, at least of the size that we've experienced now, this would not be true. Of course of a very large series of volcanic eruptions. Let's say Aureus it wasn't a meteor were to get the Earth and caused a lot of maturity to Ham is for sure you would get some rather large changes, but even Krakatoa wasn't all that big probably to affect the climatic changes is often attributed to it. Thank you. I gather Bruce from what you said earlier that it is the movement of that jet stream that really is responsible for the weather. Well, yeah, it isn't whether it is. Yeah and all these other things may play some role but they're just don't just don't have that big an impact. Okay, we have more listeners with questions and our next person is standing by you're on the air. Thank you. I'm calling from cook Minnesota, which is about 25 miles north of there. That cooks nice little place. I like it. Thank you. I was wondering if the Laurentian divide is big enough to have any effect on the weather here and then seems like so often we miss storms legal south of us. All right? Okay. The answer is very definitely your typography up. There is very much related to the weather along Lake Superior. If you go about 15 miles to the West you have a very high rich and of course the highest point in Minnesota Eagle Mountain isn't Global's up to 2,300 feet. And of course Lake superior's down at 600 feet now all along that Ridge is where in Minnesota you get by far most snowfall and the fact that you get a lot of snowfall there means that off to the West you're going to get left and as a result though by the time you get as far west as cook. You're definitely go a lot less snow than let's say you doing Ali or Isabella? Or any point along the Lake Superior Rich. So yes, the Laurentian divide is quite significant. I might even say it's significant is far as being a different climate temperature wife on top of some of the hills. We very high mountain or well I should say this is the very high heels are small mountains. You actually have sugar maple growing in the arrowhead region where if you get down the valley like it embarrass down the lowland you gets very very cold. In fact get embarrassed because he was just 52 below the other day and it commonly gets down to 40 below 45 below it embarrassed down in the lowlands. But up on the hilltops Babbitt for instance the old city Babbitt when it was right on top of the rich. We're right on top of the Divide. They only ever experienced the temperature of 40 below I believe. But for all you since 1921 very interesting five minutes before one o'clock. We'll take one or two more calls and then a few moments to summarize the weather forecasts for people before we send the FM Network off to the Metropolitan Opera and the Minnesota Public Radio news and information station in the Twin Cities to continue with weekend. Hi, you're on the air. Yeah. I'm curious about a date at what is the calendar date of the lowest average temperature for that January 25th. Daniel's two were very close then right. This is the bottom of the pole. And the top of the heat is July 26, and this is true over most of Minnesota The Dakotas, Wisconsin. However, it is not true along Lake Superior along Lake Superior. You don't get your warmest temperatures until middle of August and I was that Would that be the same date that the Northern Hemisphere gains more heat than it loses on a daily basis or is that a different date? No, we would actually gain the most heat on June 21st. So well, no, I mean in terms of the loss of heat every day the Northern Hemisphere would lose a certain amount of heat and every day it would gain it from the sun. Right? Right. We gain more after the 25th of January then we lose or would that be the March 25th? No, I after January 25th. Now we start gaining he okay, but this would not be true over necessarily entire hemisphere. Although it is true January 25th, give or take a day would be the coldest day over most of North America away from the ocean and over most of Europe and Asia away from the ocean. Okay. It's pretty close all over the world except when you get in your large bodies of water like the oceans or the Great Lakes Lake Superior, right? And then you have to it does not apply. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you for calling Bruce. Thank you so much for joining us by telephone from your home in Roseville. Today was really a pleasure to have you on and I know that people wanted to visit about the weather today. It's been a dominant factor in our lives the latter part of this week with all the snow that we received.