Warming trend; Minnesota State Fair weather history

Our weekend will end with some pleasant weather!

We'll enjoy Sunday sunshine, along with scattered clouds.

Highs will be mostly in the lower 70s, with some mid 70s possible over southwestern Minnesota:

Some spots in the Twin Cities metro area could reach 73 degrees, but that's still well below our average high temp of 80 degrees for this date.

Back to the 80s

We'll have southerly winds on Monday and Tuesday, as a low pressure system moves closer:

We could see scattered thunderstorms from late Tuesday into Wednesday.

High temperatures will trend upward as we start the week.

Most of Minnesota will see highs in the low to mid 80s on Monday:

Southwestern Minnesota will see upper 80s.

On Tuesday, upper 80s will spread over most of Minnesota:

It'll be a bit cooler along the north shore of Lake Superior both Monday and Tuesday.

Dew points will rise into the upper 60s Tuesday afternoon over southern and central Minnesota, so it'll feel steamy!

The moisture will be fuel for the scattered thunderstorms late Tuesday into Wednesday.

State Fair weather

The Minnesota State Fair begins on Thursday!

Right now, the Thursday forecast is looking good; rain-free, with highs in the 70s.

As you can imagine, we've seen some impressive weather extremes during the Minnesota State Fair.

The Minnesota State Climatology Office compiled a nice summary of Minnesota State Fair weather.

Here are a few excerpts;

The hottest day in the history of the Minnesota State Fair was on September 10, 1931 with 104 degrees. The hottest average temperature for the duration of any State Fair back to 1885 is also 1931 with 92.6 degrees. Note that the Minnesota State Fair in 1931 ran eight days from September 5-12. The 2013 Fair was the third warmest on record with 88.2 degrees and also had the most 90-degree high temperatures on record with six days.

The coldest maximum temperature for the Fair is 52 degrees on September 7, 1911, and the coldest minimum temperature is 33 degrees on September 13, 1890. The coolest Fair morning in recent years was a chilly 36 degrees on September 1, 1974.

On average it rains about three to four days during the Fair's 12-day run. The wettest Fair was in 1977 with 9.48 inches, and the driest Fair was 2003 with only .02 inch of rain.

The largest rain event in the State Fair's history was August 30, 1977. At 8:20pm heavy rains hit the State Fairgrounds. The U of M St. Paul Campus climate observatory one mile north of the Fairgrounds reported 4.06 inches of rain. This caused some of the worst street flooding seen at the Fairgrounds. The bulk of the rain fell in a 3 1/2 hour period from 8:15pm to 11:45pm. The grandstand show was cancelled, and people had great difficulty trying to leave the Fair. The Twin Cities International Airport saw 7.28 inches from this event, second all-time only to the July 1987 "Superstorm" total of 10.00 inches. People driving on I-94 leaving the Fair found water "up to their hood ornaments" in low areas under bridges.

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates at 7:35 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday on Minnesota Public Radio.