Severe drought, frigid months: Minnesota's extreme 2022 weather, by the numbers
MINNEAPOLIS -- It's been a strange weather year, with a cold spring, a dry summer, and one of the snowiest Novembers and Decembers to cap off 2022. Especially in the Twin Cities, this year has been anything but normal.
So here's a look back at the weather events of 2022, and how it compared to past years on record.
We started this year extremely cold, with a lot of chill lingering through April, and then turned the temperatures right around from May through November with several very warm months. Now as the year comes to a close, December has been well below average again.
We had a very hot June and a very hot September, ranking among the top 20 hottest for those months; but April was among the top 20 coldest Aprils on record.
Minnesota averaged about 0.6 degrees below the long-term climate average, but that single figure doesn't really tell the tale of the temperature swings of 2022.
The Twin Cities was no different from what the rest of Minnesota and Wisconsin experienced, temperature-wise. Everybody was below average this year, and no more so than in central and northern parts of the state.
It's also been an especially dry year for parts of Minnesota. The Twin Cities ended up within the top 30 driest years on record going back to the 1800s. Overall, this year we saw about 9 inches of precipitation below average.
In the summer months and early fall, we were especially below average. September of 2022 was the driest September ever in the Twin Cities. From Interstate 94 on south, the story was the same.
But areas north of the Twin Cities, particularly along the Canadian border, saw extreme rains during the late spring and early summer that lifted some areas to experience their wettest or one of their wettest summers on record. Areas like Ely saw close to 12 inches above average for rainfall.
What stands out about 2022 were the summer months. June through October were all among the top 20 driest summer and early autumn months on record. But on the opposite end, March and April were among the top 20 wettest Marches and Aprils in the Twin Cities. November and December were among the top 20 snowiest Novembers and Decembers on record.
