Spring 2013 Recap

Hope for Spring Covered by Yet Another Snowfall
Hope for Spring Covered by Yet Another Snowfall Courtesy: MN State Climatology Office

 

The 2013 meteorological spring season (March-May) exhibited cooler than normal temperatures and plenty of precipitation for Minnesota and surrounding regions. For many regions the precipitation ranked in the top 15 years of data keeping for spring, however most locations were eclipsed by the 2012 spring season. This being said, the 2013 spring season still had some of the highest amounts of precipitation on record. A couple of interesting notes-- Rochester had the wettest spring on record, beating out 2001's precipitation by over 6 inches. Fargo also had a wet spring, yet it could not beat out 1902's record at 11.44 inches.

Below are Spring 2013 rankings of precipitation compared to the 1981-2010 normal.

 

 

 

 

Spring (Mar. 1st -- May 31st) 2013 Precipitation in Inches (High --> Low)

Location     Rank      Precip.  Dep. From Normal
------------------------------------------------
Twin Cities  4th        13.50       +6.19
St Cloud     13th       10.51       +3.45         
Duluth       14th       10.79       +3.71      
Fargo        2nd        10.71       +5.27      
Grand Forks  11th       7.38        +3.11        
Sioux Falls  15th       10.96       +4.28     
Rochester    1st        21.90       +13.62           
La Crosse    2nd        16.53       +8.17     
Intl. Falls  7th        8.72        +4.41

The Twin Cities and Duluth had pretty mild temperatures by a climatological perspective, with the Twin Cities only dipping 2 degrees below average and Duluth going 1.7 degrees below average. Other locations had relatively cooler conditions; Sioux Falls recorded an average 41.4 degrees which the area has not experienced since 1997.

Spring (Mar. 1st -- May 31st) 2013 Mean Temperature in Fahrenheit (Low --> High)

Location     Rank      Mean Temp.  Dep. From Normal
---------------------------------------------------
Twin Cities  31st       42.2         -2.0     
St Cloud     5th        37.5         -4.8         
Duluth       28th       35.2         -1.7        
Fargo        9th        36.2         -4.8
Grand Forks  6th        33.5         -5.4    
Sioux Falls  8th        41.4         -3.4     
Rochester    7th        39.9         -3.6
La Crosse    6th        42.6         -3.9
Intl. Falls  5th        32.3         -5.1

St Cloud and Fargo's mean temperature tied with the cool spring of 1996, which also had very late ice out dates on lakes across the state. In general, spring of 1950 was a cooler spring overall and that year still has the majority of ice out records.

 

Last modified: July 22, 2014
Prepared by John McCarty, Climatology Volunteer
Pete Boulay, DNR Climatologist

 

For more information contact: [email protected]

 

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