Meteorological summer ends August 31, and we move into meteorological autumn on Tuesday. It was a hot one — no surprise there. It was also very dry for much of the state of Minnesota.
In the Twin Cities, summer temperatures averaged a whopping +3 deg F above normal. That was enough to make it the 6th hottest out of 153 years of records. We had 17 days in the 90s, which is above the normal 13. Fourteen of those 17 were just in July, and oddly enough, August has had none, but we’re still ending the month +2 deg F above normal.
On a statewide basis, it will likely end up in the top 20, according to climatologist Dr. Mark Seeley. The bull’s eye of our heat was in central and western Minnesota, with the greatest temperature anomalies of +3 deg F. Nationwide, it appears likely that the lower 48 U.S. states will come in at number one, beating the summer of 1936.
Far northeast Minnesota, the North Shore, and far southeast Minnesota saw less anomalous warmth, but of course they also saw some of the craziest heat in July, with the BWCA reaching 100 degrees for the first time on record.
That heat helped to set the stage for the wildfires that burned thousands of acres and created numerous air quality issues in mid-July…