Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English

Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Grand Forks, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Grand Forks (FGF) · issued Friday, September 11 at 6:53 AM CDT.

Messages

There is a level 2 out of 5 risk for severe storms late Friday afternoon into the evening for portions of west central into north central Minnesota and far southeast North Dakota. Storms will be capable of producing all hazards.

There is a 60 percent chance of more than 0.50 inch of rain late Sunday night into Monday. Widespread rain could impact outdoor activities.

Update

Short term model ensmebles, HREF and REFS, are indicating the highest severe chances are a tad east now, more so centered over areas in between Grand Rapids and Bemidji southwest to Park Rapids, Wadena and Alexandria areas. This subtle shift east would affect severe risk farther west. Storm development location and intensity all dependent on location of cold front and instabilty parameters and of the front and location of a surface low as it moves into west central MN. Operational 00z model runs would indicate development near Bemidji to Detroit Lakes to west of Fergus Falls along the front 22-23z period, with individual storms tracking northeast while front itself moves southeast. It would appear that initial discrete supercells would be short lived and a line of storms will form pretty quickly after development. This puts into question confidence of any tornado threat which may be short lived to the 1-2 hours after storm development. Also tied to location of surface low where SRH 0-1 km will be highest and that appears to be Alexandria-Wadena area near or just north of the low. Fargo does look to be west of the convective development and will keep t-storm chance east of Fargo. Do think the far west edge of SPC Day 1 is a tad too far west, but talking miles so enough uncertainity that it isnt completely unreasonable.

Does look like for the next system rain area moves through late Sunday night into Monday afternoon. Rainfall amounts have been lowering the past few days. with the blend-of-models forecast indicating 60 pecent chance of expected rainfall more than 0.50 inch but chances for more than 1 inch is closer to 20/30 percent.

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Grand Forks discussion at /o/FGF/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.