"Ice Shove" Wrecks Minnesota Home; This Is A Weird Thing That Has Happened Before

Strong winds earlier this week pushed a ton of lake ice
into this Minnesota house. 

A perfect combination of wind and spring thawing shoved a bulldozer like wall of ice into at least one lakeshore home in Minnesota this past week.

The 10-foot high wall of ice crunched into the home on Lake Mille Lacs in Isle, Minnesota. Isle is little under 100 miles north of Minneapolis.  

Lake Mille Lacs covers about 207 square miles, and the town of Isle is on the southeast corner of the lake. The ice on the lake was weak from the ongoing spring thaw.

As Minnesota Public Radio reports, a warm, mostly sunny day with northwest winds gusting as high as 50 mph on Monday pushed the wall of ice onto the shore in dramatic fashion.

This one smushed a deck and pushed in a wall of the Minnesota house.

Some people call these things ice tsunamis, because they do rise quite a way out of the water and go inland a fair amount like a slow motion, frozen tsunami.

Of course, ice shoves don't occur on every lake and they don't occur most years. You need the right combination of thawing ice that's ready to break up, a warm day, a strong wind and a shoreline to help steer the ice into big piles.

Other ice shoves have caused far more damage than this.

Lakes in Vermont aren't immune to ice shoves. There was a good one on Maquam Bay in St. Albans, Vermont on Lake Champlain in 2013.

Here's a news video from WCCO of the mishap:



An even worse ice shove hit the shoreline of Lake Mille Lacs in 2013:



Ice shoves can be pretty unpredictable, so you should stay away from them, as footage from this February, 2019 Lake Erie ice shove proves:



These things can move pretty fast, all things considered:

Hilarious: Outdoors In A Minnesota Winter

Man loses enthusiasm while outdoors in Minnesota winter

Across the nation, it really hasn't been that cold of  winter.

In Minnesota, though, not that cold can still be pretty frigid at times.

Which leads me to this wonderful video, as you can see at the bottom of this post.

In the video, a rather hairy, bearded guy goes outside in Minnesota. He has a wonderful Minnesota accent, doncha know, which make the video so much better.

The guy who gives us this joy is Jake Fischer, 27. The temperature was about 15 below when the video was made.

He starts out happy and enthusiastic, but watch that enthusiasm wither as he withstands minutes, then hours outside as ice builds up on him. Dude starts out happy enough, but after two hours, he's one.

Any of us Vermonters who have survived past tough winters can relate.

Watch and get a chuckle:

Stormy Here, But At Least It's Not Snowing (Yet)

At my place in St. Albans, Vermont, we awoke to a stormy morning at dawn, with lots of wind and rain, occasionally heavy, whipping the greening trees.

It's expected to be on the wet and cloudy side all day today, and after an OK weekend, the gloom will return next week.  But it could be worse. Ask anyone in Duluth, Minneota.

In this photo by Derek Montgomery for Minnesota Public Radio,
we have an aerial view of cars making patterns in the snow
at a University of Minnesota/Duluth parking lot Thursday. 

It's supposed to be well into spring, including in the nation's icebox of northern Minnesota. But a storm Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Duluth dumped more than 10 inches of snow.

According to the Duluth News Tribune:

"All told, 10.6 inches of snow accumulated at Duluth International Airport, a record for May that also included a single day record of 8.3 inches on Wednesday alone. It was the snowiest May day on record since 5.5 inches fell in 1902."  

Many other areas of northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin picked up two to nine inches of snow.

That area wasn't the nation's only wintry spot. Much of Colorado, including the Denver metro aera had a snowy Thursday. Some mountainous areas picked up more than a foot of new snow.

It does snow in and around Denver occasionally in May. Still, it was a spring setback. Probably nobody felt the snowy chill more than college graduates at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which held its commencement ceremony outdoors despite the snowstorm. 

The weather in both Duluth and Colorado are improving today, mostly because conditions couldn't really get worse this time of year. High temperatures around Duluth for the next few days should be in the 50s to low 60s with no sign of additional snow.

In Denver, readings should climb into the 50s today after a frosty start, and reach the upper 70s by Monday.

We here in Vermont might get in on the snowy times, at least in the mountains. A chilly storm will meander through Monday, Tuesday and into Wednesday. It might get cold enough Tuesday and Tuesday night for snow to accumulate in the Green Mountains and Adirondacks.

So far at least, it looks like the valleys will be spared the snow, but it will be unseasonably cold during the storm, with highs on Tuesday only in the 40s.

That Blizzard In The Midwest Was Bizarre. Here's Why

If you look closely at this fresh-fallen snow in Mankato, Minnesota
Thursday, you can see brown from Texas dust blown into the storm system
Photo via Twitter, Mark Tarello @mark_tarello

Minnesota Public Radio is calling it the Tex-Mex blizzard.

In some parts of Minnesota and South Dakota, some of the snow that fell with the blizzard that hit the region over the past couple of days had a tan, brown or orange tint to it.

You couldn't use the phrase "pure as the driven snow" in this case.

The storm system was so strong that dust from New Mexico and Texas was drawn up from the south into the cold northern flank of the storm.

The dust mixed with the falling snow to produce the off-color snow. Voila! The Tex-Mex blizzard.

Hmmm. A mix of snow and dirt. I guess you can say it was snirting in Minnesota on Thursday.

Satellite images of the vast storm system showed winds gusting to 70 mph lifting huge clouds of dust in West Texas and propelling it northward.

This storm reminded me of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. My late father remembered brown snow in Vermont in the 1930s as dust from the Great Plains came all the way to New England, mixing with the falling snow to give the drifts  a brown hue.

The National Weather Service/Twin Cities, Minnesota shared this
satellite image snowing blowind dust Wenesday over Texas that
drifted northward, causing brown snow in Minneota.

My husband Jeff grew up in South Dakota and he says he can remember a time or two when "snirt" fell - leaving a brownish wintry landscape. Still, this event was rare

There were other weird aspects of this storm. There is often thundersnow with this type of Plains storm. The parent system gets so strong that thunderstorms develop in the heavy snow bands.

However, this storm had an incredible amount of lightning, and there were reports of thundersnow with frequent lightning for two days.

The National Weather Service office in Aberdeen, South Dakota urged people to stay indoors there was so much lightning.

Severe thunderstorms are common during strong Plains systems like this one, but the severe weather almost always happen in the warm, moist air to the southeast of the storm's center.

In this case, there weren't that many severe thunderstorms in the warm sector. But very oddly, some severe thunderstorm warnings for large hail and gusts to 60 mph were issued in areas getting snow and sleet. That's very strange.  There were some reports of one-inch diamter hail in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

NEXT STORM OMINOUS

Areas in yellow, orange and especially red are at risk of severe thunderstorms
and tornadoes Saturday. Some of the tornadoes might be strong
and long-lasting. 

The next big storm system will develop tonight and tomorrow in Texas. This one looks more conventional, for the lack of a better word, than the last one with the "snirt" blizzard in the Plains. But this new storm seems much more dangerous.

As mentioned yesterday, this storm threatens a nasty tornado outbreak in the South over the weekend.  

If anything, latest forecasts up the chances of tornadoes, some possibly strong this weekend. The lower Mississippi Valley is the target Saturday, with the highest risk in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. 

Severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes will spread into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and the Southeast Sunday. It's Palm Sunday and churches will be busy. I'm no theologian, but I think God would want churches in these areas to have weather radio tuned in during services. God would also want congregations to have a plan to get to a safe area if a tornado warning is issued.

The storm system will reach New England Sunday night and Monday. Here in Vermont, it still looks like the storm could dump an inch or so of rain on us, and melting snow from the mountains will add to the runoff.

I suspect the National Weather Service will issue flood watches for the region that will go into effect Monday.

Judge Issues Restraining Order Against Harsh Minnesota Winter

A restraining order agains winter and winter-forecasting
meteorologists issued by a Minnesota judge. 

It snowed again in Minnesota yesterday. More than a foot of snow fell in some parts of the state, especially north and west of Minneapolis.

It has snowed a LOT in Minnesota this winter. There's TONS of snow on the ground. People have had enough.

People like Hennepin County 4th District Judge Kevin Burke, who issued a restraining order against "Minnesota meteorologists, Old Man Winter and Mr. Snow."

Don't worry, the filing was issued tongue-in-cheek. Winter hasn't driven Judge Burke to the looney bin, at least not yet. (It is supposed to snow in parts of Minnesota again later this week, so stay tuned.)

According to the Fox9 KSMP News in Minneapolis, Judge Burke ruled:

"This order is issued because there is compelling evidence in the record that Minnesota Meteorlogists have conspired with the other defendants to increase television and radio ratings. Who, for example, would watch the weather in Hawaii, where it is always nice?"

(Somebody forgot to tell the kind judge about the Kona storm last month in Hawaii that dumped snow for the first time on record on a high mountain in Maui.)

Judge Burke laid out his legal logic, in part, thusly:

"Minnesotans are hardy people. They enjoy their winters and have a good relationship with the Defendants. But there comes a point when the trust between the parties is ruptured. The Defendents have a fiduciary duty to the Plantiffs not to overdo it."

Lots of snow in Mankato, Minnesota this weekend. 

As evidence the judge cited a Star-Tribune columnist who complained of 15-foot snow piles next to his driveway.

Residents of other hard-hit parts of the upper Midwest are out of luck, despite the judge's restraining order.

Judge Burke wrote in his decision: "This does not prohibit the Defendants from continuing their exploits in Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota."

In fact, for some reason, the judge said the defendants can particularly unleash their wrath on the fair city of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  

Personally, I think a counterclaim is brewing from Wisconsin.

Cape Town, South Africa Rejoices In Flash Floods; U.S., Not So Much

Reservoirs near Cape Town, South Africa are beginning to refill with
recent heavy rains, meaning a water crisis is at least temporarily averted.

For the third time this month, a major cold front smasing  into the area around Cape Town, South Africa, promising heavy rain and gusty winds.

Sounds miserable, especially after a rather wet and gloomy May, but a lot of people in and around Cape Town are delighted with the stormy weather.

CAPE TOWN RELIEF

When last we left Cape Town in this here blog thingy, the major city in South Africa was about to run out of water.

Sometime this spring, (which is autumn in the southern hemisphere, where Cape Town is) the city of about 3.7 million would run out of water due to a long, punishing drought. The plan was to haul in water from elsewhere, and give everyone a measly 25 liters per person every day at distribution sites, which is logistically very tricky. And 25 liters isn't really much water for a person's needs.

Thank goodness the rains came. Cape Town is by no means out of the woods, but reservoirs have partly refilled with the recent rains. And more precipitation is forecast this week. Again, it won't solve all the problems there, but it's a good start. Disaster has been averted for now.

Some of the storms have been heavy enough to produce some flash flooding in and are Cape Town this month. But given the apocalyptic warnings of no water this year, it seems people there are accepting the local bouts of high water on city streets.

UNITED STATES FLASH FLOODS

As usual back here in the United States, summer storms have created some pretty nasty flash floods in the past couple of days. Ground zero so far seems to be northern Minnesota, parts of Wisconsin and pieces of northwestern Michigan.

Two to 12 inches of rain fell in much of northern Wisconsin since yesterday, and flash flooding was widespread. Major highways in the region are washed out, says Minnesota Public Radio, and flash flood emergencies were in effect this morning.

Highway 23 in Minnesota was washed away by flash flooding last night. 

Thing are still ominous out there today. As of early afternoon, the flash flood region in Minnesota and Wisconsin was under a tornado watch. The storms that could cause those tornadoes will also likely unleash more heavy rain, so more flooding is still a big risk.

VERMONT STORMS?

Monday could be an interesting day in parts of Vermont with the risk of strong storms, and despite the recent very dry conditions, the slight possibility of flash floods exists around here, too.

You might have noticed this Sunday afternoon it's gotten pretty damn hot, with temperatures well into the 80s in many spots in Vermont by 1 p.m. The humidity isn't too bad -- yet.

But the humidity will dramatically increase later today and tonight, and as I mentioned yesterday, water in the atmosphere will be at near record highs across Vermont Monday.

Meanwhile, a cold front is sagging south from Canada. Before it arrives, Monday will become a miserable day, with afternoon temperatures approaching 90. That'll be combined with unbearable humidity levels.

The humidity and the approaching cold front will trigger plenty of afternoon and evening thunderstorms. A few could be severe. The biggest threat is from local microbursts. Individual microbursts rarely affect an area more than a couple miles in circumference, but they are very dangerous. 

They come when strong updrafts in a thunderstorm keep lots and lots of rain and hail suspended in the atmosphere. Then the thunderstorm loses the updraft and all that rain and hail comes crashing down to Earth in a giant gust of wind, blinding rain and hail. Microbursts can cause lots of damage, because the winds are so strong and the incredible amount of rain that can accompany them sometimes create flash floods.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma currently has all of Vermont in a slight risk zone for severe storms on Monday.

Forecasters also have us in a slight risk zone for flash flooding. As noted, it has been dry, so it would take lots of rain to cause a flash flood. There's no chance that there will be widespread flooding in Vermont with the expected downpours on Monday. There is a big however, however.

If a few torrential storms go over the same area, a couple local towns could get some dangerous flash floods along small streams, creeks, ditches and what not.

As a result, NOAA has northern New England and northern New York, including all of Vermont in a slight risk zone for flash flooding on Monday. 

We'll have updates to this on Monday morning.

Two Videos Show Two Scary Winter Moments

Aftermath of a gym roof collapse amid heavy snow in
the Czech Republic. Video shows people inside the
building fleeing as the roof comes down 

No doubt winter can be hazardous, as the two videos in this post prove.

Up in Minnesota, there's been a thaw after a fairly long bout of frigid weather.

Minnehaha Falls becomes beautiful this time of year as giant icicles hang from the cliff where the falls is.

You're supposed to stay at a high overlook to view the falls in the wintertime.  Going down to the actual falls is dangerous, as big chunks of ice can collapse.

But as the video shows, tons of people go down there anyway. Even after, as you see in part of the newsclip that is the video, a woman got hurt when a big chunk of ice recently gave way.

Despite the obvious danger, people are still going right up to the falls. Even more dangerously, they're going behind the big ice cliffs that have formed there, which is really scary.

Watch:



Next, as I mentioned yesterday, central and eastern Europe is having a rough time with big snowstorms ane intense cold lately.

In the Czech Republic, a bunch of people were playing floorball in a brand new gym. (They hadn't even had the offiicial opening ceremony yet.)

Suddenly, as you see in the video below, the players and spectators heard and saw something, so they bolted for the exits.

Then the roof comes down under the weight of 15 inches of snow. Luckily, the collapse happened slowly enough so that everybody got out of the building safely.

Watch:

Iowa Floods Have Gotten Really Nasty

Flooding in Iowa in the past week. Photo
by Jim Slosiarek via Twitter.  

At least 5,000 people are evacuating from their homes in and near Cedar Rapids, Iowa this morning thanks to storms that dumped more than a foot of rain in some sections of that state and Minnesota in the past week.

The Des Moines Register reports this will be the worst flood since at least 2008, when the same area was inundated by record flooding.  

The good news is predictions for flood crests have been scaled back a little bit, so it won't be quite as bad as 2008.

But there's a caveat: More rain is in the forecast, and if the downpours are bad enough, it will actually make the rivers rise more than forecast. We'll have to wait and see.

Another good thing is what happened after the 2008 flood. The Des Moines Register said authorities bought out the owners of 1,350 homes that flooded in Cedar Rapids then. The houses were torn down, and the area is now green space. It's really not that bad if open parklands go under water

Better than if houses do.

Up in southern Minnesota, flood alerts remain up in that area, too. More rain and thunderstorms are due today. Already, homes and businesses in Albert Lea, Minnesota are flooded. 

The amount of rain forecast in southeastern Minnesota today - around an inch in quick downpours- would not normally be cause for worry. But since the ground is so saturated, it won't take much to renew flooding there. 

The Iowa flood is another example of what we've been through this summer in terms of flooding. As we know, extreme floods have hit West Virginia, Maryland and Louisiana in recent months. I guess the trend is continuing.

Wisconsin, Minnesota Slammed By Floods, Storms; More Coming

Highway 11 washed out in Wisconsin after torrential
rains this week. Photo by Jeff Peters/AP

As expected, severe thunderstorms and torrential downpours have been roaming the edges of a nasty heat wave in the middle and southern parts of the country.

Some of the storms are even extending southward into the heat zone, producing some nasty storm this afternoon in Missouri and surrounding areas.

By far the worst storms so far this week have been in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

A few tornadoes touched down in Minnesota Monday. Worse, thunderstorms formed a "train" going right after another in a series over north central Minnesota and northern Wisconsin.

The storms dumped up to 11 inches of rain, so as you can imagine, there was some terrible flash flooding.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declared a disaster in eight counties. One person drowned in the flooding, and many roads have been washed away.

Some rivers in northern Wisconsin rose to record levels. Two rivers flow into Saxon Harbor at the edge of Lake Superior. The huge rush of water from the creeks flushed boats away, damaging and destroying 85 of them, says USA Today.

The flash floods in Wisconsin and Minnesota are part of a widespread pattern across the United States and much of the world of increased extreme precipitation events.

There's no way I can conclusively tie this week's Wisconsin disaster to climate change, as a lot of factors were at work to produce the storms.

But the Wisconsin and Minnesota floods fit the pattern of ever more torrential rain storms that keep cropping up.

That makes sense. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. If climate change is under way, there can be more water in the air. Under the right conditions, this added moisture is released in sometimes unprecedented downpours.

In many areas, says the EPA, a greater percentage of precipitation is coming in blockbuster one day events like the one in Wisconsin this week. This is occuring even in areas where overall precipitation is showing a decreasing trend, like in the American Southwest.

For the rest of today the target areas for severe storms are in a broad area in the Midwest and southern Great Lakes, from Wisonsin to Missouri and from Iowa to Ohio.

Some areas in this zone will be hit with strong gusty winds, maybe some hail, dangerous lightning, and of course those scary local flash floods.

Thursday, the severe risk shifts to a wide band stretching from almost all of  New England southwestward all the way to Oklahoma and Texas. (Where I am in Vermont is included in this zone of possible severe storms)

Again, the risk in most of Wednesday's alert zones are locally strong gusty winds with storms and also local flash floods.

Canada's Fire Weather Spread Into Minnesota, Other U.S. Areas, Too.

Cover photo from Canada's National Post illustrates
the utter destruction of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.  

The cataclysmic Fort McMurray wildfire rages on, and the weather that caused that fire spread into the Upper Midwest.

Fires broke out there, too.

While certainly tiny in comparison to Fort McMurray, wildfires in northern Minnesota prompted evacuations and threatened numerous homes.

An assisted living facility was evacuated as a precaution in Minnesota, the Duluth News Tribune reported. 

It's not in immediate danger, but they wisely wanted to get residents out of the way in case the wind changes direction and drives the fire toward the facility.

Television station KARE reported one fire in northern Minnesota had consumed 450 acres as of Friday and was only 10 percent contained.

The temperature reached 92 degrees in Duluth, Minnesota Friday, the earliest 90 degree reading on record there. That reading also broke the previous record high for the date by a full 10 degrees.

Minneapolis also had a record high for the date Friday at 92 degrees. Saturday morning Minneapolis was among the places stuck in a murky cloud of grey smoke.

Air pollution is a big problem in places like Wisconsin and Minnesota now, too. Smoke from Fort McMurray, combined with smoke from local wildfires, has made fine particulates in the air skyrocket.

Scattered thunderstorms arrived later Friday in northern Minnesota, cooling the temperatures and providing a little wetting.

But the rain wasn't enough to contain fires, or eliminate the fire danger across northern Minnesota. Red flag warnings are up for today because windy dry weather could encourage more wildfires.