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Steamy summer of '24? Climate models leaning warmer than normal

Outlooks favor warmer and more humid conditions this summer

Summer temperature outlook
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) summer 2024 temperature outlook
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), via Ben Noll

Is it too early to think about summer?

Peeking ahead at some climate models, it appears there may be a trend toward a warmer and more humid than normal summer in Minnesota this year.

The European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) latest outlooks for summer 2024 show a bias toward warmer-than-normal temperatures across much of the United States and Canada (see the map above). Note the location of the highest temperatures relative to normal around the Great Lakes.

Ben Noll is a meteorologist and climate expert with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand.

Steamy too?

There is also the bias for higher than normal dew points across our region this summer according to the Copernicus outlooks.

Summer dew points
Summer dew points outlook.
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), via Ben Noll

The Copernicus outlooks continue the three-month temperature trend of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration outlooks. NOAA favors a warmer-than-normal bias overall across the northern U.S. through May.

NOAA 3 month temperature outlook
3-month temperature outlook
NOAA

NOAA’s current temperature outlook for meteorological summer (Jun-Aug) shows a slight bias toward warmer-than-normal weather in the eastern half of Minnesota.

NOAA summer temperature outlook
Summer 2024 temperature outlook
NOAA

Overall precipitation outlooks favor near-normal rainfall across much of Minnesota with a dry bias in the southwest.

Summer 2024 precipitation outlook
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) summer 2024 precipitation outlook
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), via Ben Noll

Minnesota has seen flash drought develop the past three summers.

The outlooks arrive in the context of a longer-term warming trend here in Minnesota. March is running about 14 degrees warmer than average so far. If we finish the month warmer than normal, it will be the 12th straight warmer-than-normal month in Minnesota.

So it will be interesting to see if the summer outlooks calling for warmth verify.

Stay tuned.