Forecast trending warmer; August warmest on record

The latest weather maps seem to confirm what I have been thinking most of this week. September is ready to go out on a summery note in Minnesota.

It all starts Friday, as a southerly breezy brings a more humid air mass, and some scattered storms.

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Here's the sequence of weather events as we plow toward another weekend. Scattered showers and thunderstorms will favor the northern half of Minnesota Friday and early Saturday, but a few may slide through the Twin Cities.

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NOAA

Overall the next week to 10 days is tending warmer. After a slight cooling trend early next week, both the Global Forecast System and Euro have finally settled on the milder solution late next week. Here's the European model version of events.

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Weatherspark

The GFS is getting in on the warmth for the long haul. A shot at 80 a week from Saturday, and a string of 70s into early October? Place your bets.

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IPS Meteostar

NOAA: Warmest August on record globally

National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration data is in and confirms the NASA data set from earlier this week. August 2014 was the hottest August on record globally. Though the U.S. continues to run cool to near average, this is the 3rd warmest year on record so far globally.

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NOAA

Global Highlights

• The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was record high for the month, at 0.75°C (1.35°F) above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), topping the previous record set in 1998.

• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for the June–August period was also record high for this period, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), beating the previous record set in 1998.

• The June–August worldwide land surface temperature was 0.91°C (1.64°F) above the 20thcentury average, the fifth highest on record for this period. The global ocean surface temperature for the same period was 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average, the highest on record for June–August. This beats the previous record set in 2009 by 0.04°C (0.07°F).

• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for January–August (year-to-date) was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.3°F), the third highest for this eight-month period on record.