May 13, 2024

5-13-24 Dawgcast

Last updated 1:30 PM, Monday May 13th, 2024

Gooood afternoon Huskies!

Hope you all are having a stellar start of your week. Speaking of stellar, this Friday and Saturday UW and the majority of the US got a rare opportunity to witness the beautiful light show of the aurora borealis thanks to the G5 geomagnetic storm from the sun. Auroras are caused by the light emissions from energized solar particles colliding with Earth’s electromagnetic field, and at a G5 (the strongest level of geomagnetic storms ranging from G1-G5), can be witnesses far below the northern and far above the southern polar regions. We hope that you all enjoyed this beautiful phenomena of space weather!

Photo credit to UW Athletics

 

Back down at the surface, we’ll see some cloudy conditions through Monday, with warm and dry conditions lasting all week. We expect to maintain 70s throughout the week as well as warm night temperatures in the 50s. Conditions should provide a quite comfortable week to close out midterms.

For this week’s planner, we’re definitely not seeing as high temperatures as last Mother’s Day/Northern Lights weekend however, temperatures will still be slightly warmer than average and we’ll get another week of sun. The exception is today which seems to be a bit cloudier than what we’re expecting to see tomorrow and onwards. Try to get out there this week and enjoy the nice sunny weather!

This weekend saw wildfires in British Columbia that resulted in smoke and adverse air quality effects in much of the upper plains/upper Midwest. Thanks to the wind patterns we avoided a smoky weekend, but Minnesota is still under an air quality alert through tonight. While we’re just starting to enjoy the first taste of summer, we need to start being prepared for the onset of fire season. Remember to monitor your local clean air agency’s forecasts and be aware of dry watches/burn bans in effect.

We hope you enjoy the rest of week 8 as we start to buckle down and get ready for finals and (for some!) graduation.

Reach forecasters Michael Hardie, Erika Wood, and Nick Shepard, Annabelle Tjio at theuwdawgcast@gmail, on Twitter/X @TheUWDawgcast, or on Instagram @uwdawgcast.