A month’s worth of rain, sun returns
Where's my kayak?
Our latest troubled, stalled weather front parked over Minnesota as expected overnight. Waves of rain and thunder unleashed multiple heavy downpours across the state in a swath from Worthington through the Twin Cities to Grand Marais.
Prolific rainfall totals from 2 to 4 inches set daily rainfall records and swamped many Minnesota towns.
A month's worth of rain
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Many towns in Minnesota picked up more than a month's worth of rain in 24 to 36 hours. The average rainfall for October in the Twin Cities is 2.43 inches at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Check out the communities who picked up one to two month's worth of rainfall.
MSP Airport recorded 2.18 inches of rainfall yesterday. That obliterated the daily rainfall record of .9 inch set back in 2013. St. Cloud, Minn., also set a daily rainfall record yesterday.
Rain tapers Tuesday
Rain gradually tapers from west to east Tuesday. Dry, sunny high pressure builds in from the west tomorrow. The sun returns in full force.
Back to the 60s
We topped out at 71 degrees with sticky dew points in the mid 60s Monday. Our air mass dries and cools to more typical October levels the rest of the week. High in the lower 60s with lows in the 40s? Closer to average for early October.
October chill
The upper air pattern favors cooler weather as we move deeper into October. The upper air maps project cooler northwest flow aloft over the next one to two weeks across the Upper Midwest.
Temperatures next week will be the coolest since April across much of Minnesota. You'll notice this is the seasonal change we expect this time of year. Highs in the 40s and 50s will get your attention.
First frost?
Many locations in Minnesota may record the first frost of the season next week. I don't see a frost ahead just yet for the Twin Cities metro. But we're getting closer. The average date for the first frost at MSP Airport is Oct. 10.
Last year we set the record for the latest frost at MSP Airport, and a record growing season of 219 days. That's typical for northern Texas. Here's more on last year's record late freeze at MSP from the Minnesota DNR State Climatology Office.
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In 2016 the Twin Cities observed its longest frost-free season on record, tallying 219 consecutive days without a 32 degree F reading at the MSP airport. The first such reading of the 2016 fall was also by far the latest on record, and did not come until November 18th--11 days later than the old record of November 7, set in 1900. The Twin Cities "threaded" record for these purposes extends back to 1873.
Historically, roughly 90% of autumn seasons produce a 32 degree F reading in the Twin Cities by October 28, and the first freezing reading has occurred in November just eight times (including 2016). Although the autumn season has warmed rapidly in the last several decades, all of the other November first-freeze dates were in the 20th and 19th centuries, with the most recent one on November 6, 1958.
Frost is typical in northern and central Minnesota in late September.
Stay tuned.