St. Cloud Sweltered Through one of the Hottest Octobers on Record

(KNSI) – A blast of wintry precipitation on Halloween helped boost October from bone dry to just dry.

Meteorologist Joe Strus at the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen tells KNSI News we got 0.86″ of liquid equivalent between rain and snow. Believe it or not, that was a bulk of last month’s tally. “The total for the month is 1.16 inches of precipitation. That departure from normal is 1.45 inches.”

While October was dry, we had 0.31″ of an inch in 2022, only two years ago. Rain is almost certain for Sunday and Monday, but Strus expects us to return to a calm pattern for the next couple of weeks. He stresses that the data is still preliminary but doesn’t expect significant revisions.

While rainfall levels were not historic, our temperatures were. Following on the heels of a toasty September, the fall heatwave rolled on in central Minnesota. That included a record high on the 28th of 77 degrees. According to Strus, we just cracked the top 10 all-time.

“The average monthly temperature was 52.9 degrees at St Cloud, that is 7.2 degrees above normal. So that’s pretty warm, right? Looks like it’s the ninth warmest October on record.”

Once again, it wasn’t too long ago that we saw similar conditions. The average October temperature in 2021 was 51.9 degrees. November is getting off to a very different start, but Strus does expect seasonal to even slightly above-average temperatures through the first half of the month.

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