80 degrees: Another record high in the Twin Cities

Another day, another record.

Or three records in 24 hours for the Twin Cities to be more precise.

The thermometer hit 80 degrees at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport late Tuesday afternoon. That broke the previous record high of 78 degrees set 102 years ago in 1922.

The Twin Cities also set a new record warm minimum overnight temperature Tuesday morning with a balmy-for-October low of 59 degrees. That breaks the previous record of 56 degrees set in 2004.

Warmest fall on record

We’re living in interesting times in Minnesota’s weather and climate. Just check out a few of these weather facts over the past year:

• Warmest winter on record in 2023-24 (about 10 degrees warmer than normal)

• Wettest spring on record in 2024 (12.51 inches)

• Warmest September on record (+6.9 degrees)

• Warmest meteorological fall on record so far (+7 degrees)

Temperatures across Minnesota over the past month continue to run between 7 and 10 degrees warmer than normal.

Halloween snow chances

I posted earlier Tuesday about our chances for rain and or snow Thursday morning. Not much has changed in the forecast model world since then.

The models are a mix of three possible scenarios:

1. A cold rain overnight into Thursday morning with temperatures around 40 degrees.

2. Rain mixed in with some wet snowflakes Thursday morning with little or no accumulation.

3. Rain changing to snow Thursday morning with possible sloppy accumulations of a few inches.

Right now, I’m leaning toward scenario No. 2 with rain mixing in with snow on Thursday morning. The ground is still very warm. That will eat up the first waves of flakes falling earthward.

But if temperatures in the lowest mile of the atmosphere manage to cool just another 2 or 3 degrees, we could be looking at a steady snowfall.

Let’s see what Wednesday’s forecast model runs bring.

As we say in the weather biz, stay tuned.