The Twin Cities' year of mild weather
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
With summer winding down, the Twin Cities is wrapping up one of the mildest yearlong stretches of weather in recent memory.
Why it matters: Minnesotans love to grouse about the weather, but there's been little to complain about since last fall.
What they're saying: "If this was your first overall year in Minnesota, you might be kind of convinced that this is how it always is — that it's pretty nice," National Weather Service meteorologist Tyler Hasenstein told Axios.
😎 High temperatures have eclipsed 90 just six times so far this summer. The area usually sees 15 such days, according to the Midwest Regional Climate Center.
⛄️ Last winter, lows dipped below zero only six times. The mercury normally goes into the negative 27 days each winter.
❄️ The Twin Cities had just three snowfalls of two inches or greater last winter, down from the normal eight.
Yes, but: As Hasenstein noted, the previous year was much more extreme.
- The winter of 2022-2023 was the third-snowiest on record and the summer of 2023 was a scorcher, with 33 days above 90 degrees at MSP Airport.
Between the lines: There's no single reason for the mild weather, he explained.
- Several winter storms missed the Twin Cities to the south. Recent would-be 90-degree days were avoided due to cloud cover and other hot days were cooled down by popup storms or rainfall.
Reality check: One area where the weather wasn't mild: Rainfall. So much in the first half of summer that rivers all over the state flooded.
Zoom out: Minnesota has been an outlier. The U.S. has endured some big summer heat waves, particularly in June.
What's ahead: There's nothing above the mid-80s in the seven-day forecast and the National Weather Service's three-month outlook says a warmer-than-normal fall is likely.