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In this episode of Industry Matters, VP of VGM Live at Home, Jim Greatorex, talks with Darren Corcoran with Vets Access and Steve Dawson of Harmar about the challenges overcome in 2020 and the opportunities in 2021 for the home accessibility market. Tune in to find out about Supply chain constraints, shipping damages, and the forecast for the rest of this year. 

Lorelle Miller is an award-winning artist who expresses a lifetime of developed technique and personal investigation in her works that comprise oils, pastel, marble sculpture and other mediums. Evidenced in her artwork is a unique sensitivity for mood and emotion, which offer a glance into the deeper wells of her experience. Lorelle shares her vision of natural beauty and the intensity of the human experience through her paintings, sculpture and street art. She utilizes a broad yet finally tuned spectrum of media, each of which contributes to her expression and visual art.  Read ore about Lorelle Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Lorelle Miller, an award-winning artist who expresses a lifetime of develop technique and personal investigation in her works that comprise oils, pastel, marble sculpture, and other mediums. Evidenced in her artwork is a unique sensitivity for mood and emotion, which offer a glance into the deeper wells of her experience. Lorelle shares her vision of natural beauty and the intensity of the human experience through her paintings, sculpture, and street art. She utilizes a broad yet finally tuned spectrum of media, each of which contributes to her expression and visual art. So please welcome to the show, Lorelle Miller. Passionistas: What are you most passionate about? Lorelle Miller: My strongest passion, and it may just be one thing, but it's basically, I love nature and my art. So those are probably the two things that I love and I'm most passionate about and feel happiest being involved with. Passionistas: But it seems like you've managed to tie those two things together. Lorelle: Yeah. I've always been somebody who loves to work outside. So a lot of my things that I do artistically, I'm happiest when I'm outdoors in nature or outside, I suppose. Passionistas: Did you grow up in nature? What was your childhood like? Lorelle: My main growing up years were just in the San Fernando valley, but I think I always took sort of, you know, I had sort of a, a calling towards being out in nature. I used to backpack. Yeah. So camping and, and all of that sort of thing. And I'm an artist, you know, I've always loved to draw and paint. So I don't know. Nature's always been a kind of a soothing place for me, even as a little girl, you know, I'd find a hiding place up in a tree or something. Passionistas: Were you always an artist? Lorelle: It seems like I started, yeah, super young because of that back in the day of, you know, growing up, if there weren't all the electronics and stuff, when I was young. So, I guess I'm sort of mechanical. And also I like to draw. It started probably when I was like eight or nine years old. Passionistas: Did you study art formally? Lorelle: I went to Cal State Northridge and I have a bachelor's degree from there. And then, um, I started a master's degree there also, but that didn't finish because I ended up having children. Like that kinda got carried away and I've studied with many master artists after that, just on continuing education going on in various areas. And I've learned a lot just on the street, literally. Passionistas: What do you mean by that? Lorelle: Well, I'm a street painting artist, which is a nice segue, I suppose, I guess as a little kid, you know, one of the first mediums that I worked with was pastel. I mean, cause they're so forgiving actually. And I had a lot of private art lessons, luckily, cause my mom saw a lot of potential in what I did and I got a lot of accolades growing up in school. Like even in with meeting my friend, Gayle who nominated me for this, I used to be pulled out of my normal class to go into a special artist class — like for gifted kids. I did a lot of pastels at that time. And so, years later, you know, when the street painting idea came up, you know, there was something that came about in my community for that. It sort of seemed like a natural thing to try, kind of took off from there. Passionistas: Tell everybody what street art is in case they don't know and how did you get started in that? I've always done painting and drawing and sculpture and I wasn't in 3d sculpture before it was 3D, like on a computer. Yeah. You know, that sort of thing, but I always did pastels. And so I think I was judging an art contest for my local artists association. And I was, I still remember this sort of weird, we were all judging these like high school students paintings or whatever. And I remember they mentioned this thing that they were having this event in the community called the Bellavia, which. Uh, street art. It was going to be a street painting or a street art festival. And I mean, street painting is something that's been going on since like the 1500s in Europe and so forth. And I actually had seen a street painter. I went to Europe like three times before I was 20 years old by some miraculous manner. I don't know a lot of different circumstances that I actually saw street painter. But at this time when they were talking about this event, I thought, you know, I really ought to try it. It just was like, it's like, I heard it. And it was just like, crystallized, like, you know, you really ought to try it. You just need to go see what this is about. Like, it rang in my head. It just like, you know, some things you just don't pay attention to, but it was like, yeah, I gotta see what this is. So they did this terrific event here in, I live in Santa Clarita and they had this event called the Bella. And they invited these more experienced GE painters. And then, you know, other people were able to apply and so forth. So I applied and I, they, I got in to the street painting festival and I just started out with like a, I think a three by four foot square. And I was really nervous cause I had not really done that before. Basically what street art is. You asked me to tell you what that is, is that you. Um, usually asphalt or like the street and you create artwork on the street that is, you know, either classical renditions or something that your system, original composition or whatever it is that you're doing. And people basically walk, can walk by and watch you create the art. Because a lot of times when artists are working, they're in their studio. So this is a public art form. And then. They can watch you. And then, you know, when they, you take a break, you're down on the ground, they're above you looking down at it. And so when you stand up or take a break or something, you know, people can ask you questions and interact with you. It's had a far reaching effect on my life. I got to tell you, so that's what it is, but that's where it started because I did this piece by Renoir called the dance of bocce ball. I think. I'd done it in oils. And I thought, well, I know this painting well, so I did this painting and then a scout, there was a talent scout going around and picked me up for another festival, which was down like towards Irvine. And then it snowballed because I've traveled all around, doing this, barely traveled to festivals around the world.  So what are some of the places that you've done work? Lorelle: I've gone to Mexico to a place that's on the other side of the bay from Puerto Vallarta, it's a festival called Bucerias. And that was really neat because just the experience of being in a small town in Mexico and cross cultural types of things. And we worked with children like children from the orphanage there. Teaching them about street painting. And then I went to Norway. Also. I have family in Norway and my sister-in-law. She had a friend who had an octillion in a little town called Harmar. And so she asked if I would come and produce a street painting for her  and expose the kids to street art in Norway. And I actually had one circumstance. I went to a middle school in Norway and I did a demonstration there and there was kids from Somalia, Russia, all these exotic places. And then the teacher was, I think the teacher was from Scotland and I was from America and we were doing the street painting thing in Norway. It's like that happened. It was just amazing. Passionistas: How do you decide what work you're going to do? Where do you draw your inspiration? Or did they have themes for the different events? Lorelle: They sometimes have themes and sometimes it's just something that hits me. I can't even explain it. It's just like, you know, artists, how do, how do you pin down their muse? You know, it's just an inspiration that strikes you. Like I did this big project, like in 2019 called the garden of Eden. It's probably the biggest thing I've ever done, but I, that inspiration was because I like to play an air paint and I go around to different gardens, my husband and I love to go walking and gardens and stuff. And so I created this, the street painting. That was huge, enormous thing that was done by a collaboration of, I don't know how many artists all worked on it. Maybe about 15 artists. We all worked on it and created this botanical garden. As a street painting installation, but that was what the inspiration came from, was me traveling around and just doing my watercolor painting. And then I thought, wow, that would be like a cool street painting idea. That's one example. Passionistas: So it seems like street painting has evolved recently. You see the things on the internet of someone sees a building with a crack, and then they turn that into, you know, this dark hole that you look like you can walk through. Do you do that kind of street painting too? Or do you mainly concentrate on your own style masters and the masters and things like that? Lorelle: I kind of do all of it really. I mean, I worked for, I think I kind of still do, but there's a company called We Talk Chalk. They did a many commercial, like big commercial projects. And I would come in and these were not just made out of chalk, but were done on canvas and painted with acrylic paint because they have to be sent out to like cores or all the different commercial, you know, Kia, all these big commercial companies wanted to use that art form to promote businesses. So I got involved in helping produce those types of things for them, which was really wonderful. And I've done many 3d things on my own as well. I don't think it's my strongest suit. I like doing it and it's fun for me, but I think I love a lot of the classical kinds of little. So sometimes it's impressionist. So, you know, I'm not one of these. It's really hard for me as an artist. Cause I kind of migrate. That's probably one of the, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I migrate to different, but I do. I love class, very class, whole looking things too. And I do the 3d. I was like a moving target. It sounds like you continued to study. I just wrote something to one of my artists, friends. I said, you know, artists, I don't know my exact quote, but it was kind of like, you're always walking around the next bend to try to sort of see what's there. It's not, it's not like you're never done. You're just always kind of seeking and curiosity pulls you around that corner to see what's next. Passionistas: You know, you said that doing street art has had a far reaching effect on you. How has it changed your life? Lorelle: I suppose it's just the connection to so many various artists that I know all over the world. I have actually met them. They're not just virtual friendships that have gone to a street painting festival in Florida for about 10 years or more than that now, and this festivals international festivals. So they bring people in from everywhere. Ukraine, Australia. Mexico everywhere. And these are all people you create. You've got a community suddenly, you know, you've got a community of people who you've known each other. You kind of come back to the same place every year. And so we really connected in Italy. I've a lot of friends in Italy and that is huge because we all, we help each other when we need, and we support each other. If there's questions. It's just a terrific and amazing thing. And it's sometimes it's been in very funky situations where, you know, I mean, cause you practically are living together sometimes, you know, and like these artists just imagine what you would think and still almost like a community or commune of artists that are, you know, eating together and talking and doing, you know, just whatever it is and talking about your ideas are creative. So I have that, you know, that community that's grown over the years and that's just one festival, but it's many. So it's almost like a circus that's kind of travels around together. Yeah. Sort of thing. And then, um, the effect that it has, I think just the travel and the community. And then, and then also the effect that see that it has on people as they're looking at what you're doing, the public effect is, is a really big deal. Passionistas: What kind of reaction do you tend to get? Lorelle: It's all different. You know, I was in North Dakota two years ago and I got invited to come back there again pretty soon. So that's going to be interesting. I dunno. I just, I, you know, I, for that festival, I kind of was thinking about that. It's a little town called a Putin and, uh, Industry there, how to do with the trains. Like it was a big train community and my husband more, and his mom was Frank from St. Paul and her father worked the train. And I connected with that thought how cool it would be to think about the trains and going there and doing some that speaks to their community. And they have the bison there. They have big Buffalo bison and combining those images. And I did this piece that meant a lot to me. I just felt like it showed the power of the animal and the power of that iron, you know, train. And, you know, even though it didn't really talk to every single person that came by, but there was somebody that came by. Whose whole family was, had been historically in this train, kind of, that was everything that their family was, you know, from his historically. And they really got it. You just, without even saying anything, they were just like, you could tell that they connected with it with the imagery and stuff. So it ranges from the very emotional response to something as silly as like I made an anamorphic snow cone for one project. That was out in Cerritos, California, and you know, it was the anamorphic. So it was this huge thing that was like 20 feet long, but you could stand there and hold it. And it looked like you were eating a snow cone and people are goofing around with it and kids were having fun. And so, you know, there's such a broad range, but it can be a very emotional one too, just silly. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Lorelle Miller to learn more about her art. Visit LorelleMiller.com. And be sure to save the dates for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit being held virtually this year for August 20th through August 22nd. For details, go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. Now here's more of her interview with Lorelle. Before we started recording, you were telling us about a collaborative piece in Pasadena. Tell us what that is and how that works. How do you actually do a piece with other people? Lorelle: I wasn't really instrumental in bringing that about at all, but basically what happens like what's going to happen with that one is that there's a, a big image that I told you. It was a Norman Rockwell that was suggested and everybody thought it was cool. It was a good image, but they basically break it down into sections, like, like long triangular sections. And then everybody works on their section and it kind of comes together. Now I've worked on many collaborations. I've worked with another big influencer for me was a very, very famous, um, street painter named Kurt winter. I've been actually involved in like two or three of his projects. Two of them were in the Guinness book of world records, but the one in Pasadena, we're all doing individual sections. When I worked on a big piece that I did for Kurt winter, if you look up the garden of wonders on YouTube, you'll see this giant anamorphic shark. I think it was like 27,000 square feet. It was in the Guinness. And then my little garden of wonders that I created was off on the side of that. You can see it just kind of kept adding to it because that was on a runway in Florida. Then as Florida, we took over an airport runway and created these huge installations. So it's really interesting, but so sometimes it's done in sections like collaboration. Sometimes people will do sections and then sometimes they work in layers like Curt Winter would have. Do a layer and then other artists were work on top of that layer. So that it's almost as though all the different styles kind of merged together, which is really crazy. That was really interesting to be a part of that, to see how that was all done, you know? Cause you think, cause everybody has a different handwriting, every makes a different mark, but somehow when it's all pulls together, it can Nash and that's not unusual. I mean, even in the classical. You know, they would have somebody who would do a lot of the, let's say the, you know, organic botanical types of ideas, you know, for painting. Then another person who was a figurative painter would come in and work in, do the figurative and they'd work it together. Is there a lot of pre-planning in that type of project or is it just like, here's your corner go for it? It ranges like when I did the garden of wonder, cause that, like I said, that was a huge endeavor and it took a year to prepare. And I had a lamp, uh, my friends, uh, the Renshaw has this couple that I know they're architects and the landscape architect when I wanted to do that garden. So I had the help of, I had the concept and I made a maquette, a model for it, of what I wanted, and they worked out the geometry with me. And my idea was just to, to create this format and then, um, The artists themselves, the people that I asked to join the team, I wanted a nice cooperative team. Cause that's, you gotta kind of watch that, you know? Cause you gave people that are too like, you know, that will resist. So I found this wonderful dream team of people that were extremely talented and I wanted them pretty much to do their, their thing. I wasn't going to like art director. But I wanted to give him the format and then have it all kind of work together. That's kind of how we did that. One. We, we, it was a combination of do your own thing, and this is kind of the, your parameters that you have to work with. And then once you get onsite, it always changes a little bit too. Like you have the idea. And then when it comes to the, the actuality of it, You know, we wanted to kind of like, maybe have some of the leads carry into another part of the, the other side. Like you have Asia and then you have Africa. I forget all the different ways I did it. You know, I had each continent was divided up. Passionistas: So what happened? That was different on the day? Lorelle: Well, then for instance, like the, like we wanted a little segue, like if, you know, I had it kind of like structured in walls, like, uh, I think it was, this was an octagon, it was seven, seven sites. Septic on. So it was very linear, like an end. And then some of the artists said, well, wouldn't it be kind of neat. Like I have a cherry blossom tree if it kind of like moved over into the next side just a little bit. So it kind of flowed. So that is something we discussed on that. Passionistas: How has COVID impacted your work? Lorelle: All the street painting basically pretty much stopped just now the drums starting to, you can hear the drums starting to be now the festivals. You know, I was up in Canada. That's another place I've been to. So they're starting to come about, some of them are still virtual festivals. Some of them are starting to like, okay, we're going to do it here. Anyway, like in North Dakota, um, Pasadena is doing it. Um, but as far as my own personal work, I have not really skipped a beat. I mean, My art in its own, you know, just my, my painting and all of that. I've been doing it consistently throughout this thing, I think probably saved my mental health, quite frankly, but I did participate in several virtual festivals and so forth, but it did have an impact for sure. And I, you know, I was teaching, I've been a teacher for 25 years off. And that had to come to a halt and I'm, he's still evaluating how I want to carry that forward. But you know, this, this time during the pandemic, I, I just thought to myself, you know, at my age, and everything's like, you need to be doing your best work. Like this is when you need to bring it. I mean, I can still goof around and do whatever, but, you know, it's like, I'm really trying to like focus on, you know, how many years of your life do you have to really put out your best that you can. No, we don't live forever. That's true. So tell us more about that. Passionistas: Tell us more about your non street art. Lorelle: I love to draw and drawing and painting work hand in hand, and sometimes, you know, I'll concentrate. I think what I do, because I, like I told you, I kind of migrate to various. Aspects of my work and with painting and drawing, like you can concentrate on where it's just painting and it's just, I mean, it's just drawing and it's just like black and white or graphite or charcoal or something. And I'll focus in on that, but then I'll get hungry for color. And I may move into working more with my oil paints where they're thick. And I have to, you know, manipulate the plasticity of the paint where, you know, you have to drag the edges and soften the edges and so forth, or sometimes I'll get hungry again and I'll need to move over to my watercolors because of the fluid nature of it. And the fact that there's not as much control sometimes, or you have, it's just, each thing seems to have a different draw for me. So I, you know, I've been moving through those throughout the pandemic and I was taking. Some online classes and listening to lifestyle. Totally. I didn't listen to podcasts that maybe I, I do actually, when I think about it, cause I was listening to several artists like, you know, very helpful, you know, on Fridays, Craig Nelson is a terrific artist and he had this online thing going on where you could ask him questions and watch what he was doing. And I actually started doing that myself. Not that I really can talk and paint that well, I would put up my camera and show my process of whatever like that. Ruth Bader Ginsburg behind me. I did that live and I did, I did that a lot throughout all the pandemic, but I basically, I guess I do, I do my oil painting and I like to draw and I love water color and I still need to get back to my sculpture. That's I have that too. It's dormant right now. You mentioned that you also teach art. So it seems like you've done that a lot. I worked for Segerstroms Art Center and I did, I did a lot of I've done teaching really since, I guess since, uh, probably about 25 years. I think I, I worked for our community college as an adult. Instructor for all kinds of things, different community classes and, um, art camps for kids. And I worked at the school in the school district. And, um, then later on I, I did stuff for seeker sons, which was great, that that had a lot to do with science and art. We were trying to create programs where we were using different artistic. Vehicles to help explain scientific concepts. And that was a collaboration between seeker Sims and university of Irvine. And we were visiting artists. And then I do a lot of workshops. I'm a visiting artist to a lot of schools. Like I worked at a school for Al the, um, you do an artist residency, like at a French school. I did that out in Orange County, which is really cool. Cause I got to use the tiny little bit of French that I know I learned a little bit, but it was teaching students street painting. I did this huge, this huge street painting with all kids from kindergarten all the way till I guess they were maybe fourth or fifth graders. So I've done teaching like that. And I, and I've done my own private classes too. I taught for the community college. Yeah. Out here. For like 15 years, I taught seniors. Like I went around to various senior living homes and I would teach in those areas, you know, different people at those places. And then I had private let, you know, did private classes at my house for many years too. So I've had a broad range with teaching and then I teach also on the road, like when I would go to. A festival, they would have me teach, like in Chicago, I would show street painting techniques or in Nashville, I've gone to so many places. That's another part of the extraordinary experience that I've had with just traveling and teaching too. Passionistas: What do you like about teaching? Lorelle: I like the sharing part of it, and I like it when the people are serious and get something out of it, you know, when they are, they. I think one of the biggest thing is, is when they see the growth or I can see the growth in them. I know it's an entertaining thing to do, but I like it when it's like, somebody is really getting it and wanting it more than play. I like the play part too, you know? And I got to tell you one other thing I did, I taught a high school junior high Institute that was really. Gosh, that was a great fun, the energy. It's such an interesting thing, too. When you, when you teach such a variety of ages, like from kindergarten to 90 year olds, and then you teach the junior high kids and their energy is just like off the wall. I taught a sculpture. I taught sculpture in this class of junior high kids that were, you know, I ha I had all this assemblage stuff to do, like assemblage scope thing. And I, you know, they would make like, whatever. Some kind of creature or something like that. I would say now, imagine if you can make it like, as giant as a planet or as small as a cell, you know, I had them use their brain to think of how those ideas could be expanded or God, it was, that was a lot of fun, but it wasn't no, you know, I thought they would come in there and make like maybe one thing and they ended up making like three things, you know, all in the same amount of time. Cause their energy sucks. It's really fun. I love like when I was, uh, I went to a Sonoma school, but it was a kind of, a little bit of an inner city school type thing. And I had a lot of fun with the kids. I enjoyed that a lot, you know, doing the street painting and having them kind of develop their ideas. I was there for six weeks, right before the pandemic. Passionistas: What's the most challenging part of being a street artist? Lorelle: There's always physical challenges because the streets. Is extremely physical. I mean, you can be working for like 12, 14 hours a day on the ground. So you have to really, I mean, that's suppose that's a big challenge to sophisticated city of it. And luckily I've been doing it for so many years. I still am pretty good, but that's one challenge. I think most of the challenge just comes from yourself. Like just wanting to do your best work and not emotionally getting hung up on competitive stuff with other artists and stuff like that. That's that for me, honestly. And it's kind of, cause you know, as an artist, sometimes you get rejected too. So that's, I mean, that's a hard thing for me. I wish I could. I'm trying to work on that. That shouldn't be a thing. I, you know, you really just want to kind of do your own thing and not worry about the others stuff. Like, you know, you win some, you lose some. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to follow her passion for art? Lorelle: Probably to be fearless and curious and just do it. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Lorelle Miller, to learn more about her artwork, visit LorelleMiller.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for a one-year subscription and get a free mystery box worth $40 using the code SUMMERMYSTERY. And be sure to save the dates for The 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit being held virtually this year from August 20th through August 22nd. For details, go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Note: This episode was recorded on Friday, June 11.Climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld and Jim du Bois discuss the June 14, 1981 tornado that struck Edina, Minneapolis, St. Paul and the Har Mar Mall in Roseville. Also, a look at the rapidly expanding drought conditions in Minnesota. SPEAKERSJim du Bois, Kenny Blumenfeld Jim du Bois 00:00Edina, Lake Harriet, HarMar? Whatever you call it, it's the 40th anniversary of a significant tornado event in this area. This is Way Over Our Heads. It's a weather and climate podcast. I'm Jim du Bois. Kenny Blumenfeld is a climatologist. Kenny, we'll get to the 40th anniversary discussion here momentarily, but, boy, just looking out the window at the garden in the yard, you can tell that something kind of turned the corner over the last few days. Kenny Blumenfeld 00:34Well, we were super hot, right? I mean, newsflash, it was hot as hell. And yeah, and we didn't get any precipitation or, you know, some people got a little downpour here and there, but there wasn't anything widespread and substantial. And our gardens, our grasses. Everyone is feeling the effect of that. It's become really dry. So I know we're going to talk about the tornado, but we can really quickly recap the heatwave, shall we? Jim du Bois 01:05That sounds good, Kenny. Kenny Blumenfeld 01:06All right. So we are speaking on Friday, June 11. This should be the last day of the consecutive run of 90 degree highs and 70 degree lows in the Twin Cities. So I think we can call it, the heat wave will break. today. Although if you look at the Weather Service forecast, it's not exactly cold next week. They've still got temperatures, you know, in the 80s and 90s in much of Minnesota through next week. It's just not as humid and not quite as persistent. I think there's going to be some ups and downs. But, so the main event heat wave will end at some point on Friday, probably before most people hear this. Maybe it'll end with a little pop, some thunder. But I think the strongest storms will be out in Wisconsin, and you know, before we recorded, overnight on Thursday night and into Friday morning there's monster thunderstorms in the Dakotas. I mean, just from eastern Montana, into especially North Dakota, but also parts of South Dakota, they had reports of wind driven tennis ball-sized hail. And the winds were were being clocked by I think it was one of the stations out of Williston, had a, a real weather station, had a 93 mile an hour wind gust. So there were some really strong winds. And these storms were producing pretty large hail. So, wind driven large hail can pack a punch and do a lot of damage. We don't have anything like that to worry about. It's just been hot. It's probably going to not rain very much until the next time we talk. And that's going to be over a week. And as we were talking about before we went on, yep, Minnesota has slipped or I should say lurched into drought. We've been kind of teetering on the edge of it. Now over 40% of the state is actually in an official drought designation of moderate drought. And the entire state is at least abnormally dry, which is kind of a pre-drought category. So, the majority of the state is either abnormally dry, or in that first level of drought, which is called moderate drought. And there's even some pockets of the next level, which is severe drought in parts of southern Minnesota. We've just, these precipitation deficits are catching up with us. We're spending too much time in between rainfall events, and when it rains is not enough to catch us up. And as we had happen, you know, then we have a scorching heat wave laying on top of that, and that just made it, it's been too much. So, we need to come out of this pattern or it's just going to escalate. But yeah, we're at the beginning of a drought officially now. Jim du Bois 03:40And Kenny, there's really no immediate relief in sight, correct? Even going out 6, 10 days. Kenny Blumenfeld 03:46I mean, you know, the Weather Service mentioned in their discussions last night and this morning, in some of the recent discussions, that it's not the same heatwave, for sure. It looks like there's going to be a couple hot days next week. But this sort of day after day run does not look like it's making a return. But it's gonna be a while before we're, you know, down in the low 50s at night. I hope that happens in the next week or so. But it doesn't look very likely at this point. But yeah, I wouldn't say the kind of relief that you're thinking of. On the other hand, Jim, when it's 95 degrees every day, and and the nights don't get below 70, you know, maybe, maybe high of 88 feels like relief. Jim du Bois 04:33It's all relative, isn't it? Kenny Blumenfeld 04:35Yeah, I think it is. Jim du Bois 04:37And I also assume no real relief in sight as well regarding precipitation. Kenny Blumenfeld 04:44Yeah, this isn't super promising. I was on a radio show this morning speaking with a host from the Two Harbors area, and we were just talking about how the weather models right now are very up optimistic as they have been for months, that it's going to start raining hard in about seven days, but it just never gets much closer than that. And so, it's hard to have now that we've had this multi month pattern where it looks wet, it looks like you're gonna get into a wet pattern, but it doesn't really materialize, maybe one out of four times that actually materialize, and so you end up with, you know, one week per month, it's actually getting decent precipitation. It's hard to trust that prognosis. There's nothing really in the forecast for the next week or so showing significant precipitation in Minnesota. Certainly nothing to start pulling us out of this major deficit that's building. But you know, the weather is not that easy to predict, once you get into, you know, that two-to-five-week period. And so, maybe Jim, maybe there's a pattern change coming that we don't see, maybe we're going to get, you know, we're expecting a really active tropical weather season. And maybe, maybe a couple of these are going to come up the zipper just right up the Mississippi and dump a bunch of rain on us or at least help export some of their moisture into our region. And, you know, imbue the next systems that come by after that with extra moisture, and we end up getting dumped. It's hard to know. But right now, we're in a drought pattern, and I don't see any strong signals of that changing soon. Jim du Bois 06:22Well, let's certainly hope that we get a pattern shift and get some of that much needed precipitation. It sounds like dry conditions and drought are fairly common in the western parts of the United States right now, hearing about very serious drought conditions in Colorado, concerns about water in California, wildfires in California, potentially also Washington State and Oregon. So, just a real need for precipitation in a rather substantial part of the country, it sounds like. Kenny Blumenfeld 06:53Yeah, yeah, basically, the western half or so of the country is running pretty dry, maybe the western 40%. And we're on the eastern edge of that. And then we're starting to get some signs of it. What's interesting is, you don't have to go too far to the east. You know, in the eastern US where I'm going to be next week. I mean, there've been Flash Flood Watches, and they've got precipitation surpluses. So, it's really, we're just on different sides of the same pattern where we're stuck in getting kind of dry air pulled into our region, there are other areas that are in that kind of non-stop conveyor belt moisture. Jim du Bois 07:29Well, as we had promised in the tease, we're going to talk about a tornado event that took place 40 years ago, this coming Monday, June 14, and it did depend where you were living in the Twin Cities at the time in terms of how you would probably describe the event. If you were in Minneapolis, it was the Lake Harriet tornado. If you were in Edina, the Edina tornado. It famously knocked down the marquee on the Edina Theater, which sadly has now apparently gone out of business in the wake of COVID. But then it could have been the HarMar tornado if you were in that area. And it was a rather significant event. Kenny, how did that particular event unfold? Kenny Blumenfeld 08:15Yes, so it was Father's Day weekend, and I actually did a fun run with my dad and my brother that weekend and it poured, poured, poured, poured in the morning. And it was just, you know, we think of this event, and I've, you know, done research on severe weather, and we remember there's a tornado that went across the Twin Cities, and that was a big deal. But that whole weekend was very stormy and even in the morning, the morning of the tornado, a violent thunderstorm complex moved across the southern Twin Cities metro and into kind of the Rice County area, Northfield area, and it produced estimated winds of 80 to 120 miles an hour. This was a completely separate storm, Sunday morning, June 14, 1981. It was demolishing outbuildings in rural parts of the southern Twin Cities area. So, that was, we just had a, you know, meteorologically we had strong winds aloft, we had a moist, very humid airmass moving in, and a low-pressure area approaching from the west bringing in a cold front, and that's just a really good recipe for severe weather. And so, later that day as the air became quite muggy in the Twin Cities area, a thunderstorm blossomed over the southwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area, started producing hail in the Lake Minnetonka areas. There were a couple thunderstorm cells, but the main one moved into the Edina area in the late afternoon and produced a tornado not too far, just a little bit southwest of 50th and France, and that tornado tracked right over the Edina movie theater, twisted and then bent down, I don't know if you remember the old pictures, but it bent that marquee and then kind of twisted it to the ground, and then it tracked from that point over essentially western and northern Lake Harriet. I mean it crossed about half of the lake and hit particularly hard the pavilion at Beard's Plaisance. It threw that, lifted it off its structure and threw it into the lake, picked up a bunch of water from the lake, picked up some fish from the lake, which is something that tornadoes like to do occasionally. Knocked down almost every tree in the Roberts Bird Sanctuary, pretty much every tree in the Rose Gardens and the old park commissioner house by Lyndale Farmstead was damaged pretty extensively. And then the tornado just tracked over the Chicago-Lake area past, went and damaged old Agassiz School. Mercifully, it actually appeared to briefly lift off the ground and miss the area between the University of Minnesota and downtown Minneapolis, and then it went back down near St. Anthony Park in St. Paul, tracked into the HarMar area where it actually deposited some of those fish from Lake Harriet into the parking lot. Jim du Bois 11:05Wow. Kenny Blumenfeld 11:06Neat little sight. Did a lot of residential and tree damage at the time, and then moved into Roseville where it finally dissipated after doing extensive damage. I think officially it was 83 injuries and one fatality near Lake Harriet, was rated an F3 tornado, I guess retroactively, we would call it an EF3, pretty damaging winds probably in the, you know, it's always an estimate, in 50 mile an hour range. And it was not enormous, but it was a good size tornado occasionally up to a half a mile wide at the base. And yeah, I mean it was, and then we were a little slow to pick up on it. So, the original warnings, I lived not too far from Lake Harriet. That's where I grew up. So, we had the winds pass our house, I mean, big gusts of wind and you can see the trees kind of bending and, but we didn't know that there was a tornado, there was no warning yet. It was about three or four minutes after the wind subsided that the first report officially came in and the sirens went off. And so, there was a little bit of a catch-up game going on between the warnings and where the tornado actually was. And that led to some confusion. Initially, it was assumed that there were three separate tornadoes: one in Edina, and one in Minneapolis, and one in Roseville. And it wasn't until a couple days later that it was confirmed to be a single track. The former State Climatologist Earl Kuehnast walked the entire length of the tornado path and was able to confirm a pretty much continuous track. Jim du Bois 12:43Well, Kenny, we all have memories of that day. I remember I had worked an early shift, 5:30am at a radio station in the Twin Cities. I was living over by the University of Minnesota at the time, it was Father's Day, as you mentioned, and we were having dinner for my dad. So, I had gone home about 2:30 or so and caught a brief nap until I was roused by the Civil Defense sirens and walked down to our front porch where my mom and dad were sitting and my mom who grew up on a farm said oh, we already heard the tornado pass by. We were living, or my parents were living at that time by Bde, Bde Maka Ska. So, it crossed rather close to my childhood home. So that was my memory. But then of course, I went back to work and drove down to the site around, it would have been 38th and Bryant and phoned in from something quaint called a telephone booth to the radio station and described what had happened. Talked to a couple of people whose houses had been in the path. But what are your memories, Kenny, of that day? Kenny Blumenfeld 13:52Oh, I mean, it was, I was you know, playing soccer in the backyard. The sky turned kind of green, and I was already, so I was already a huge weather fan even though I was seven, I was only seven years old. But I loved storms. I was terrified of them. I remember we were playing soccer outside, there was a brief kind of a sun shower, and then it got muggier and within about 15 minutes or a half an hour of that, you can see this much darker and more ominous clouds on the horizon. And our horizon, we're south Minneapolis, so we could basically see, you know, maybe 10 miles or something because it was, there's lots of trees and I was sort of looking up because of very dark clouds not too far away. And my mom told my friend he had to go home. And I went into the house and then kind of watched as the winds picked up. And you know, they were pushing the trees almost to the point of snapping and bending but you know, almost uprooting and almost snapping but they never did. But I did remember very distinctly that the trees were kind of pointed down the street to the north at the beginning of the storm, at the beginning of this gust, and then about a minute later, they were pointing kind of almost, not quite the opposite direction. I didn't know what that meant at the time. It was only years later I figured out oh, that was you know, we were about a mile away from the tornado that was the circulation of the tornado passing. The winds would have been, as it's to our northwest, the winds would have come, you know, essentially, kind of out of the west or southwest initially. And then as the tornado passed, they would have been basically coming out of the northeast. So, that sort of made sense. I would say 50 to 70 mile an hour winds, 50 to 60 mile an hour winds in our neighborhood. But you only had to go a few blocks to the north, and you can see trees down, trees down on houses, and then the more significant damage as you got into the area where you were 38th, you know, the Lyndale Farmstead area, Agassiz School I think it was 38th and Grand and then that whole area up into Chicago-Lake, they were hit very hard. Jim du Bois 15:53Well, Kenny, we will chat again in about two week's time, you and your family are going to be riding roller coasters throughout the eastern and southeastern part of the country, correct? Kenny Blumenfeld 16:04That is correct. Guilty pleasure we have. We've always been roller coaster enthusiasts. It's something I've done with the kids for several years. So, got a little road trip planned to go visit some of the good ones. Jim du Bois 16:18Well, Kenny, make sure you enjoy, and everybody stay safe over the next 48 hours or so probably, especially the next 12 hours, it'll still be pretty hot. Stay hydrated. Don't work too hard outside. Pay attention to your body's signs. And Kenny, we'll look forward to checking in with you when you're back on terra firma, and not somewhere up on a roller coaster. Kenny Blumenfeld 16:44Yeah, losing my mind going down a big steep drop. Alright, well, thanks, Jim. You have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. Jim du Bois 16:52This is Way Over Our Heads. It's a weather and climate podcast. I'm Jim du Bois. Kenny Blumenfeld's a climatologist. We'll talk to you soon.

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