Balmy autumn heading for record territory
Roses are still blooming at the Huttner Weather Lab.
In November.
Our balmy autumn is about to get freakishly warm as we move through the first week of November. Temperatures will run +10 to +15 vs. average this week across Minnesota. That means highs in the 60s, even a shot at 70 degrees once again across southern Minnesota by Friday and Saturday.
Your local 5-day forecast looks perfectly normal, for the first week of October.
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Latest freeze on record likely at MSP
MSP Airport still has not reached 32 degrees this fall. This is the first time in 58 years we've postponed the first freeze into November. The latest first freeze ever recorded at MSP? November 7th, 1900.
The maps I'm looking at say we're going to break the record for the latest freeze on record in the Twin Cities this year. Right now I don't see a freeze at MSP until at least November 10th, probably later.
Longest growing season on record likely
Here's another update on our quest for the longest growing season on record in the Twin Cities.
Today marks day 203 of the 2016 growing season by my count. 2016 is now the 3rd longest growing season on record, and we'll tie for 1st place if a freeze is not observed freeze at MSP until Saturday November 5th.
All indications are temperatures will stay (well) above freezing into next week, so I'd put that chances that 2016 will be the longest growing season on record at 99.9%. A growing season of at least 210 days now looks very likely at MSP this year.
We're about to break a 143 year old record.
Not just Minnesota
It's been warm just about everywhere in the U.S. this week. Weather Underground's Bob Henson elaborates on the scary Halloween heat wave of 2016.
Trick-or-treaters and adult partygoers will be doing their best to keep their cool over the next several days. It’s been seasonally chilly and even snowy across parts of the Northeast, but Phoenix saw its latest-in-any-year 100°F reading on Thursday. Over much of the central and eastern U.S., temperatures will soar to unusually warm heights as we roll through All Hallows’ Eve and into the first several days of November. Temperatures on Halloween (Monday, October 31) are projected to reach the 70s from South Dakota to West Virginia and the 80s from Kansas to the Carolinas. As a very strong Pacific jet continues to pump mild air into the nation, we could see a few all-time monthly records for November threatened later next week, especially across the U.S. South. Here’s a day-by-day guide from weather.com on the warmth next week could bring.
Even more noteworthy than the degree of warmth is the lack of widespread autumn chill. For example, Minneapolis has yet to dip below 36°F as of Friday, October 28. That doesn’t look likely to happen before at least next weekend (November 5 - 6). In records going back to 1873, the latest Minneapolis has ever gone before seeing its first 35°F of the autumn is November 1, way back in 1931. The city’s latest first freeze was on Nov. 7, 1900.
Colder around November 13th?
The longer range maps still hint at colder air moving south from Canada by around November 11th to 15th.
NOAA's GFS models suggest freezing temps, and at least some chance for snow by then.
Stay tuned.