REGIONAL— Last week’s rainfall wasn’t enough to lessen the drought status across northern St. Louis and Lake counties, although areas to the south did see some improvement thanks to widespread rain totals of 1-3 inches.
Most reporting stations in northern parts of the county saw between a half-inch and an inch of rain from Nov. 19-20, the first significant precipitation in nearly a month. The area has been in severe drought since October, although that’s mostly reflected in lake and stream levels, which remain low, rather than fire danger.
With colder temperatures now settling in, the impacts of continued dry weather will be harder to detect for the next several months, whether or not the area receives much additional precipitation over the winter months.
What is likely to be noticeable is the apparent change in the weather pattern that is expected to bring average-to-below-average temperatures to the region well into the first half of December. The North Country has experienced one of the warmest fall seasons (Sept.-Nov.) on record with only a handful of days of below average temperatures over the past three months.
According to the national Climate Prediction Center, however, Minnesota can expect to see temperatures running below average through at least the first ten days of December. The average high in the area on Dec. 1 is 26.9 degrees F, with an average low of 7.7 degrees above. That will cool to an average high of 18.2 degrees and a low of minus-5.2 degrees by Dec. 31.