:: Fire Weather (Part 1)
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July Holiday! The weather was excellent. We have definately tamed down into the "dog days of summer" which WCCO-TV meteorologist Paul Douglas reminded me last night refers to Sirius, the "Dog Star", which rises in the southern summer sky and since it was the brightest star, ancient Greeks thought it contributed to heating the Earth.
The warmer, drier spell we have over us is raising fire dangers across Minnesota. Today the Minnesota DNR just placed the 7-county Twin Cities metro under MODERATE fire danger risk level, joining all but the southern 1/3 of MN in that risk category. Lakeville technically is included in that moderate range being located in Dakota County. We have a Fire Weather Page on lakevilleweather.com that depicts our calculation of fire danger risk as well as includes a bunch of data from the MN-DNR on fire weather (the page updates hourly and was just redesigned yesterday). Our calculation of fire danger uses the Canadian/European model of calculation (because that is what is built into our software)...and although right now we show "LOW" at a Fire Weather Index of barely 1, this could change dramatically as heating builds through the days and weeks to come with little to no precip.
See part 2 for weather discussion.