Very warm, dry May continues; Memorial Day weekend looks beautiful
Most of Minnesota is running behind for May rainfall
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In a reversal of March and April, May has been dry and quite a bit warmer than normal. That pattern continues through this Memorial Day weekend into May’s final days.
Dry, warmer-than-normal May for most
After a cold, wet first half of spring, May has been quite the opposite. Temperatures are averaging 3 to 5 degrees above normal statewide with the exception of the North Shore.
It’s also been a pretty dry May with many areas seeing only about half of normal precipitation. About the only part of the state seeing normal or a surplus of precipitation are the areas around the Minnesota River that received torrential rains earlier in the month.
While drought isn’t present anywhere in Minnesota, the areas considered abnormally dry expanded from 26 to 30 percent in the latest drought monitor.
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Not too far to our south, drought is quite prevalent from eastern Nebraska through much of Kansas into Oklahoma.
Most of our medium to long-range models forecast those rain deficits expanding north into southern Minnesota through June, so buckle up. We may need to be watering our fields and gardens.
Beautiful Memorial Day weekend
We’ll have a gorgeous holiday weekend with sunshine and dry weather for most of the state. By Sunday and Memorial Day there will be the chance of a few showers or thunderstorms in northwestern Minnesota only.
The center of our dominating upper-level, high-pressure ridge will shift east some. That will allow at least the chance of some spotty thunder to move across Minnesota Tuesday into Wednesday and Thursday.
