Summer 2022 recap and a warming trend begins Wednesday with isolated thunder Friday

Temperatures will start to climb Wednesday into Thursday and Friday. Highs will be in the mid-80s and even upper 80s by Friday. Dew points will also become sticky by late Thursday into Friday with cooler air moving in Saturday.

Wednesday begins a warming trend

Temperatures start to tick up a bit Wednesday into the mid-80s across southern Minnesota. We’ll have more abundant sunshine again with dew points still comfortable. Thursday and Friday it’s warmer still, in the mid to upper 80s.

We’ll also notice dew points increase to sticky levels by late Thursday into Friday.

A cool front moves across Minnesota touching off just an isolated risk of thunder and bringing cooler air behind it for the holiday weekend. It will still be very pleasant and warm with highs in the 70s and low 80s Saturday through Labor Day.

Meteorological summer 2022, that’s a wrap (almost)

Summer has flown by, quite literally. Wind speeds were above average most of the summer as well as most of 2022. That got many people’s attention but so did the heat at times.

While this summer was not as hot as 2021, which was our hottest on record for the Twin Cities and in the top three across Minnesota, it will end up about 17th or 18th hottest out of 149 years for the Twin Cities. The average temperature was 2.2 degrees (F) above normal, which may not sound like a lot but that’s a whole standard deviation above the 30-year normal. Summer average temperatures see about half the variation of winter temperatures.

The precipitation picture of course was very mixed. You can see in the precipitation anomalies below the mixed picture with big deficits in the Twin Cities and south central Minnesota but big surpluses in northeast and southeast Minnesota.