Warmest day in 7 months; unusual ice-out patterns developing

Finally.

Temperatures soared across Minnesota Monday. Highs in the 70s and 80s surged all the way north to the Canadian border Monday afternoon. International Falls hit 82 degrees. The Twin Cities topped out at 84 degrees. That's the warmest, and first 80 degree day in over 7 months.

Cooler but still nice

A cool front trims temperatures about 10 to 15 degrees the rest of this week. Highs in the 60s to around 70 will be common across most of Minnesota this week.

Spotty thunder

We'll continue to see a few scattered T-Storm pulses into early Wednesday. NOAA's NAM 3 km resolution model suggests one wave across northern Minnesota overnight into Tuesday. A second wave favors the frontal zone from the Twin Cities south and east as it sweeps south Tuesday evening.

Weird ice-out year

Our warm windy weather is doing a number on lake ice. Ice is going out fast on smaller lakes all over Minnesota now.

The geographic distribution of ice-out is unusual this year. Late snow storms across the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota largely bypassed northwest Minnesota. So while lakes remained under a foot of snow around the Twin Cities, sunny days with temperatures in the 50s and no snow cover in northwest and west-central Minnesota allowed the sun to work on thinning the ice. Notice how many lakes north of the Twin Cities are already ice free compared to the bigger metro lakes.

Near record ice melt process?

The combination of late season cold and snowfall combined with a dramatically rapid warm-up and high late-April sun angle is making for an incredibly quick ice melt process this year. There is no metric I am aware of for how fast lakes have gone from 2 feet of ice, to ice-out. But in my observation, this year is remarkable for how quickly the thick ice form last week is breaking up.