Rain expected to mostly miss Twin Cities, concentrated in far southern Minnesota
A record warm rain at the Weather Lab last Friday. Far southern Minnesota was predicted to get rain on Wednesday this week into Thursday.
Paul Huttner| MPR News
Did you get your tan on Tuesday? It was warm and sunny enough in much of the state that we spotted a lot of people out in short sleeves.
It was the last day of sun this week before we were supposed to get some much needed rain. But by Wednesday, it looks like that may not happen.
MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joins MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to explain.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: Say, I felt a little guilty yesterday sitting on a patio, t-shirt, and adult beverage in hand on March the 12th in Minnesota. It was warm enough for most of us to do that, but things are going to change a bit in the coming days. MPR's Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner is here with more. Hey, Paul.
PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Cathy. I love that visual of you sitting there with a beverage on the patio in March. That's wonderful.
CATHY WURZER: I know, but there is this horrible guilt because you know shouldn't be doing this. It just not right. It's not right.
PAUL HUTTNER: It's very odd. And I just got to go back one second to your wonderful conversation with Chris about Grand Marais. We go up there, rent a cabin, my family, a week every summer on the North Shore. And the carrot cake from Crosby Bakery-- they usually serve it at the Gunflint Tavern, right? Well, they were out last year, so we scoured the town and finally found a whole carrot cake at the Co-Op and took it back to the cabin. Unbelievable. Oh, I wish them much success.
CATHY WURZER: They sound great. So let's talk about-- it's been warm up the shore, too, for that matter. A warm start to March for almost everybody here. So how warm are the temperatures running so far this month around the state?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. We're 13 days in, Cathy. The Twin Cities were 14 degrees warmer than average right about so far, and this is our 12th straight warmer than normal month in Minnesota. We saw our earliest 70 degree reading ever on Sunday. You remember that? We hit 74. And today, it looks like our fifth day of 60 and warmer this month, so that's very, very unusual for March.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. OK, what about the rest of this week?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, the party's over a little bit. Today's the last real mild day for southern Minnesota. We're in the 60s. It's in the 30s, though, up north. I always say Minnesota is a tall state, so even if our head and shoulders are a little cold, our feet can still be warm.
It looks like a rain system will just clip far southeast Minnesota tomorrow. 50 in the Twin Cities, mostly sunny again by Friday. We'll be around 50 with 40s north. And then we're in the 40s Saturday, but Sunday is the big change. Colder, 30s statewide, a few flurries. It'll be windy. It'll finally feel like March out there Sunday and Monday, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, does that mean that we get we get snow in March, though? Might we see some snow?
PAUL HUTTNER: We might. I don't think Sunday will be a big deal, just some flurries and snow showers. We're going to warm up again next week a little bit. Tuesday, Wednesday, 40s. Back to around 50 by Wednesday in the Twin Cities. Then it does look colder again late next week, and there is a chance of at least some light snow late next week for central and southern Minnesota.
We'll see how that tracks. And the models are saying maybe another chance of rain or snow about March 24th, Cathy. It looks like the outlooks are keeping us normal or maybe favoring colder than normal temperatures overall through the rest of March, so can't rule out snow yet. We know we still averaged 3.5 inches of snow in April, too, so I think we're still not out of the woods on snow. And boy, we could use moisture any way we could get it right now.
CATHY WURZER: Because we're so dry. Yikes.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, much of the state. That rain in December was critical. It helped soak up the soils a bit, but we're going to need some timely spring rains here to get going into the growing season.
CATHY WURZER: I wonder. Wouldn't it be weird to have such a warm winter, and then you have a cool-ish summer? I mean, I'm sure you're looking at some of the longer range models at this point.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I am, and it won't surprise me if we're cool into the first part of spring here, the last part of March. Who knows? Maybe the first part of April. But Cathy, looking ahead at summer, some of those projections are starting to come out. Now the European group Copernicus has a climate service.
And they've just come out with some new maps for summer hinting, favoring at warmer than normal summer in the USA and Minnesota. Temperatures maybe two degrees warmer than normal, maybe three degrees in the Great Lakes, Duluth, North Shore. That's what some of the maps are printing out.
Dew points may be higher than normal this summer, one to two degrees, so we could be humid, maybe some real steamy episodes. And precip normal to below normal once again, especially southwest Minnesota. So I hope we don't do this flash drought thing again this summer. It'd be great to get some steadier precipitation this year. We'll see how it plays out.
CATHY WURZER: And because normal is so skewed, what exactly might normal be, even if it's a little bit above normal? What's the range there?
PAUL HUTTNER: In terms of temperature?
CATHY WURZER: Yes, thank you.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. I mean, we peak at 86 degrees for our average, our normal high, in the Twin Cities in July. We could see a lot more days in the 80s and maybe some more 90s this summer if this trend with Copernicus pans out.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, interesting. OK. So let's talk about Climate Cast.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. We know, Cathy, that Minnesota's producing more than 25% of our electricity from renewable sources now. That happened faster than people thought it would. But there's a big backlog of solar and wind projects trying to get approval to connect to the grid in Minnesota.
And there's a proposed bill in the legislature in Minnesota that would streamline that process to try to get these projects on faster to try to modernize the grid and make that more amenable to these projects. So we'll be talking about that tomorrow, Climate Cast on All Things Considered.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Hope you have a good rest of the day.
PAUL HUTTNER: You too. Thanks so much, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: That's our Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.
PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Cathy. I love that visual of you sitting there with a beverage on the patio in March. That's wonderful.
CATHY WURZER: I know, but there is this horrible guilt because you know shouldn't be doing this. It just not right. It's not right.
PAUL HUTTNER: It's very odd. And I just got to go back one second to your wonderful conversation with Chris about Grand Marais. We go up there, rent a cabin, my family, a week every summer on the North Shore. And the carrot cake from Crosby Bakery-- they usually serve it at the Gunflint Tavern, right? Well, they were out last year, so we scoured the town and finally found a whole carrot cake at the Co-Op and took it back to the cabin. Unbelievable. Oh, I wish them much success.
CATHY WURZER: They sound great. So let's talk about-- it's been warm up the shore, too, for that matter. A warm start to March for almost everybody here. So how warm are the temperatures running so far this month around the state?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. We're 13 days in, Cathy. The Twin Cities were 14 degrees warmer than average right about so far, and this is our 12th straight warmer than normal month in Minnesota. We saw our earliest 70 degree reading ever on Sunday. You remember that? We hit 74. And today, it looks like our fifth day of 60 and warmer this month, so that's very, very unusual for March.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. OK, what about the rest of this week?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, the party's over a little bit. Today's the last real mild day for southern Minnesota. We're in the 60s. It's in the 30s, though, up north. I always say Minnesota is a tall state, so even if our head and shoulders are a little cold, our feet can still be warm.
It looks like a rain system will just clip far southeast Minnesota tomorrow. 50 in the Twin Cities, mostly sunny again by Friday. We'll be around 50 with 40s north. And then we're in the 40s Saturday, but Sunday is the big change. Colder, 30s statewide, a few flurries. It'll be windy. It'll finally feel like March out there Sunday and Monday, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, does that mean that we get we get snow in March, though? Might we see some snow?
PAUL HUTTNER: We might. I don't think Sunday will be a big deal, just some flurries and snow showers. We're going to warm up again next week a little bit. Tuesday, Wednesday, 40s. Back to around 50 by Wednesday in the Twin Cities. Then it does look colder again late next week, and there is a chance of at least some light snow late next week for central and southern Minnesota.
We'll see how that tracks. And the models are saying maybe another chance of rain or snow about March 24th, Cathy. It looks like the outlooks are keeping us normal or maybe favoring colder than normal temperatures overall through the rest of March, so can't rule out snow yet. We know we still averaged 3.5 inches of snow in April, too, so I think we're still not out of the woods on snow. And boy, we could use moisture any way we could get it right now.
CATHY WURZER: Because we're so dry. Yikes.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, much of the state. That rain in December was critical. It helped soak up the soils a bit, but we're going to need some timely spring rains here to get going into the growing season.
CATHY WURZER: I wonder. Wouldn't it be weird to have such a warm winter, and then you have a cool-ish summer? I mean, I'm sure you're looking at some of the longer range models at this point.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, I am, and it won't surprise me if we're cool into the first part of spring here, the last part of March. Who knows? Maybe the first part of April. But Cathy, looking ahead at summer, some of those projections are starting to come out. Now the European group Copernicus has a climate service.
And they've just come out with some new maps for summer hinting, favoring at warmer than normal summer in the USA and Minnesota. Temperatures maybe two degrees warmer than normal, maybe three degrees in the Great Lakes, Duluth, North Shore. That's what some of the maps are printing out.
Dew points may be higher than normal this summer, one to two degrees, so we could be humid, maybe some real steamy episodes. And precip normal to below normal once again, especially southwest Minnesota. So I hope we don't do this flash drought thing again this summer. It'd be great to get some steadier precipitation this year. We'll see how it plays out.
CATHY WURZER: And because normal is so skewed, what exactly might normal be, even if it's a little bit above normal? What's the range there?
PAUL HUTTNER: In terms of temperature?
CATHY WURZER: Yes, thank you.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. I mean, we peak at 86 degrees for our average, our normal high, in the Twin Cities in July. We could see a lot more days in the 80s and maybe some more 90s this summer if this trend with Copernicus pans out.
CATHY WURZER: Oh, interesting. OK. So let's talk about Climate Cast.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. We know, Cathy, that Minnesota's producing more than 25% of our electricity from renewable sources now. That happened faster than people thought it would. But there's a big backlog of solar and wind projects trying to get approval to connect to the grid in Minnesota.
And there's a proposed bill in the legislature in Minnesota that would streamline that process to try to get these projects on faster to try to modernize the grid and make that more amenable to these projects. So we'll be talking about that tomorrow, Climate Cast on All Things Considered.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Hope you have a good rest of the day.
PAUL HUTTNER: You too. Thanks so much, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: That's our Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.
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