Minnesota, Wisconsin, and many other states in the center of the US will be 'under the gun', heat-wise, over the next 10 days or so. It'll be close to 100F here the next few days, and that's without the humidity. With all the rain we've had lately, the air is thick enough to wring out like a wet sponge.

Been watching the drought coverage on the news and weather channel...meanwhile, we've had torrential rains here the last few days, with some areas exceeding 7 inches of rain in the last 30 hours. The storms have been impressive to watch, with lots of lightning - but at least 2 homes not far from here have burned after being struck by lightning.

Heavy rain fell all last night, flooding many of the freeways around here. And just a couple miles from my house, rain washed out a railroad bridge, causing a derailment this morning. That same track is used by one of the main commuter trains from the north into Minneapolis. Its loss could influence traffic if it's not fixed soon.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, and many other states in the center of the US will be 'under the gun', heat-wise, over the next 10 days or so. It'll be close to 100F here the next few days, and that's without the humidity.

Yuck. That long? Oh well, I don't leave my apartment much anyway.

The rain was horrible at times yesterday. My feet got soaked just walking across the a parking lot. The wind blew the rain inside my car as I was getting in and out.
It was raining so hard I could barely see at times to drive.

It's sunny again today. No rain. But it is very cool, like the temperatures we have in Spring.

~Riella

We are finally in a week-long spell of sub-100. For the last two months, we've only had about a week's worth of sub-100 degrees days. And the low's don't drop below 70 degrees and that's at 5:00am just before sunrise. Once the sun ascends above the horizon, it's back to 90 and shortly up to 100 again. But this week is only supposed to be mid 90's with a chance for storms later in the week. We'll see if that happens. We still have hardly gotten 1/2 an inch since October.

Want some of our rain Fencer?
From three weeks ago on we have had rain, and or heat. System coming through tonight, and heat index is supposed to hit 105 to 110 by noon on the 'morrow
Makes me want to sink a little lower into the mire. Maybe up to my neck. But I find that the flies tend to seek shade under the brim of my hat, and rest on my nose.
But, I suppose even they need some relief.

We could certainly use it. The farmers around here are VERY concerned. The pecans trees may lose their crop which is very unusual. But there are two very good things about next to no rain: minimal mosquitoes and minimal weeds. During our 'monsoon' season which is now, the weeds tends to grow faster than we can mow then down. But yes, we are in desperate need for rain. If only we could simply pipe all that river water that has completely flooded you guys over in ND and Iowa and other places over here.

Well, the heat wave came. I think I'll be perfectly fine, and yes, enjoy it, except for Sundays. I didn't realize how hot it was, so I was sitting in our non air conditioned church, in heavy clothes, stuck between to sweaty people, and literally every part of me was dripping. Dripping.
But I think I'll be fine now.

My weather keeps switching back and forth from sunny to sprinkling. It's cool out.

~Riella

10:30pm and the temperature is 81.3F/27.4C. Tomorrow will be up to 100F.

Got a break last week with upper 70's and low to mid 80's for the highs. But the heat is coming back.

And the low's don't drop below 70 degrees and that's at 5:00am just before sunrise

That's about where our lows will be the next few days. Dry too with humidity below 20%. Not .

Air you can wear.

That's what someone has dubbed the thick, warm, moist mass that assaults you the instant you walk outside here. Dew points remain around 80F, making it really difficult for your body to cool itself via evaporative cooling (your sweat doesn't evaporate. Eewww! ) (At a dew point of 80F, the air has 16 times the moisture it does when the dew point is only 40F).

I'd be glad to send some of this moisture south where it's needed. A supercell thunderstorm passed through here just a couple hours ago, dropping a couple more inches of rain with golf-ball size hail mixed in. The ground is quite saturated and trees are getting blown over.

It was an impressive storm to watch, though. It got almost dark as night (the cloud tops reached 70,000 feet - twice as high as jetliners fly and 25,000 feet higher than the typical thunderstorm), with spectacular lightning and torrential rains.

But it didn't cool things off. Tomorrow may be the hottest day of this heat wave, reaching 100F/38C, and a heat index of 130F/54C. I'm somewhat relieved to remember that in 6 months the air temperature could easily be 125F colder than it is now, and the 'feel-like' temperature could easily be 165F colder than it will be tomorrow.

Why do we live here again?

Can't resist posting this shot from last winter...

Today it was so hot, I was able to half-cook meat without any flame under the pan. Like, really. I'm not exaggerating. The flame was off, and the meat was sitting there sizziling in the pan.

I had to turn the flame on to cook it all the way though.

~Riella

We got the rain we were asking for and just like it does here, we got it all at once. I guess it was about an inch and we have lots of lakes on our property. We'll see in the morning how much is left, but I'm not guessing much. We have been so dry it soaks in very quickly.

It's hot. What else is there to talk about?

I hope you all stay nice and cool today!

I'm a Minnesotan, and boy, is it hot! We're known for our cold winters, but not our summers! It's been so hot, I've had to bring water on my walks, and by the end of half hour walks, it's all gone.

Poor Spot the cat from a nearby farm comes to our garage just to sit on the cool cement or our rain barrel, which must be cool. And we've given her water with ice cubes in it as well.

We just had our county fair, and it was just warm then. Poor animals would be roasting now if they were here.

Well, at least we have a breeze today. That helped on my walk a little. And I don't think our pool will be too open for the next few days...

Today is even hotter than yesterday.

~Riella