Trending toward dryness again as June approaches
Will this be another summer of flash drought?
The weather maps are looking very dry across the Upper Midwest right now. Multiple forecast models suggest little or no precipitation for at least the next week across most of Minnesota.
The European model’s latest precipitation output for the next 10 days at the top of this post favors dryness into June 3.
That begs the question if we are heading into another summer of flash drought in our region.
You may recall last spring started wet. April and May combined produced 7.32” of precipitation in the Twin Cities.
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Then the rainfall spigot shut off. Minnesota went from drought-free in late May to around 50 percent drought by last fall.
Early June Outlook: Warm and dry
Weather patterns can shift rapidly of course. But right now the overall pattern into the first week of June looks warm and dry.
Here’s NOAA’s 8 to 14-day temperature outlook.
And the 8 to 14 day precipitation outlook favors below-average precipitation for the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest.
So we’re already searching for rainfall here as we look ahead to the last week of May 2023.
Stay tuned.