Coming after the 5th hottest summer ever recorded we just finished the hottest ever recorded September, beating the #1 spot of 1897 that stood for 126 years:
It wasn’t just the Labor Day weekend heat wave that pushed up temperatures but three separate heat waves this month and consistent warmth.
We finished the month by breaking the record high for the 30th of September, 88 degrees (old record was 87 in 1897). Undoubtedly, this kind of warmth is made more likely due to human caused climate change. Climate Central’s ‘Climate Shift Index’ for Saturday shows that southern Minnesota’s high temperatures were made 2 to 3 times more likely due to the warming we’ve seen in September in recent decades.
The Sunday of Labor Day weekend when places as far north as Brainerd hit 100 degrees was even more of a crazy climate change signal. Those highs were made up to 4 to 5 times more likely due to human caused climate change in northern Minnesota.
September temperatures have warmed several degrees over the past 50 years, making it one of our fastest warming months. It is an obvious sign of a green house warmed world where the heat is lingering from the summer much longer into Autumn than it used to. I’ve also discussed how summers are heating up earlier too (namely May but especially June).
Not only was it the #1 hottest September for the Twin Cities but according to Climatologist, Dr. Mark Seeley, statewide it will rank as the #1 hottest September. No shocker there. Temperatures ranged from 4 to 7 degrees above normal statewide, considering the standard deviation for September average temperature is just 3 degrees, those are huge anomalies.
We’ll be starting October hot too. Sunday looks to see temperatures that will again be 20 degrees above normal and likely breaking another record (once again 87 degrees set in 1897).
How about the rest of October? We’re in for an inevitable chill late week with highs in the 50s and low 60s, below normal for a change but overall the month looks likely to be above normal.
NOAA’s NMME ensemble models give us high odds of a warm October:
ALL of the other models (Canadian, European, etc.) also paint a picture of a warm October:
El Nino of course is raging now and likely to keep that warmer than normal momentum going through the winter months into 2024.
It’s worth noting too, that while we remain warm, at least we’ve broken the dry stretch. Thanks to the several inches of rain over the last seven days, September will go down as the 14th wettest now. It’s the wettest single month since August of 2021!
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