Where’s summer?

I know it's still only early June, but some of the natives are getting restless.

I talk to Minnesotans about weather everyday. The conversations these days fall into two camps.

Camp 1: "Paul this is the most beautiful weather! I'm so glad it's not hot and buggy. It's a little cool at night but it's nice to save money on heating and air conditioning these days."

Camp 2: "Hey Huttner, when is it ever going to warm up around here?"

There's a little edge creeping into the tone of those of you in camp two.

Well if you're in camp one, congratulations. You just won the weather lottery for another week or two.

Our extended spring really has been magnificent by many standards. May was seasonably mild in the metro. Temperatures were a little warm, coming in at 1.5 degrees above average. The scant .53" of rainfall was the 3rd driest May on record. That deepened our drought, but was great news for golfers, bikers and anyone else who likes to get outdoors. With very low humidity, highs in the 70's and lows in the 50's it felt like Arizona in wintertime. Even the mosquitoes took a holiday.

The medium range forecast models do not show a big warm up in sight yet. We are running cooler than average so far in June. After a brief warm up Thursday and Friday, it looks like we may stay there for another week at least. You'll forgive the good folks from Duluth to International Falls if they are not too thrilled about the prospect of more frost this month.

The thermometer on the Weather Lab motor boat says 66 degrees on Lake Minnetonka these days. Long term lake average temperatures are hard to come by, but I can remember many years when the surface water on Minnetonka was at or above 70 degrees by this time of year. It's still a bit bracing to jump in your favorite lake, especially up north.

I always tell people that the 3rd week of June is when things really start to warm up around here. Let's hope it happens this year. Summer is already too short at this latitude.

PH