June is Minnesota's wettest month, and this year it lived up to its billing in spades.
So much rain fell in June that rivers across the state jumped their banks and massive flooding swept away homes, drowned downtowns, swamped parks and farm fields, and closed roads.
Though rain fell on 16 of the month's 30 days, the 7.27 inches recorded at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport as of Sunday morning didn't set any precipitation records in the Twin Cities. Not by a long shot.
As soggy as June was, totals in the rain bucket at the Twin Cities official weather observation station made this year only the 14th wettest June on record, well off the all-time mark of 11.67 inches from 1874, according to Minnesota State Climatology Office.
In southern Minnesota, however, high-water records were set in Windom, where 14.58 inches of rain fell, breaking the previous mark of 11.06 inches that had stood since 1914. Even more fell in Wells, in Faribault County on the Iowa border, where 14.94 inches set a record, besting the previous high of 12.58 set in 2013.
Owatonna entered the record books, too, with its 13.13 inches. But no place may have seen more rain this past month than Faribault. There, the 16.63 inches of rain smashed the old mark of 12.96 set in 2014 and is believed to have been the highest total of any of the National Weather Service's reporting stations.
Many other cities made it into double-digit rainfall, according to readings turned in to the Weather Service by volunteer observers.
Typically, the Twin Cities sees about 4.58 inches of rain in June, but this year brought about 2.8 inches more than normal. And it probably seems like more after last year when a paltry 0.93 inches of rain fell during the year's sixth month, Minnesota Climatology Office data shows.
The least ever in June was 0.22 inches in 1988, the data shows.
Why so much this year?
Blame it on a warm front draped over the state, bottling up cooler weather to the north and steamy weather to the south and west. The colliding air masses put the squeeze on Minnesota, Assistant State Climatologist Pete Boulay said.
"It seemed that every weather system was passing over Minnesota," he said. "We were locked in that weather pattern all of June, and that is a bulk of the issue. That triggers rounds of classic heavy rain."
June's deluge did catapult the Twin Cities way up the list of the wettest April, May and June periods going back to 1871. The metro area saw 17.27 inches of rain during those three months, making it the fourth-wettest April-to-June of all time, the Climatology Office said.
Still ranking ahead of 2024 is the 17.88 inches that fell during those three months in 2001, the 18.89 inches in 1908 and the granddaddy of all, 22.18 in 2014, the Climatology Office said.
The last time the Twin Cities had a wetter month than this June was when 7.82 inches of rain fell in August 2016, Boulay said.
If there has been an upside to the incessant rain, the ever-flowing spigot has kept away the sizzling heat and humidity baking other parts of the country. As of Sunday, the daily average temperature in the Twin Cities in June was 69.7 degrees, on par with normal, the Climatology Office said.
The average high and low temperatures for this time of the year are 82 and 64 respectively, according to the Weather Service. Official thermometers have yet to record a 90-degree reading, though it was close at 89 degrees on June 16.
"When it is wet like this, it's hard to get to 90 degrees," Boulay said. Dry ground heats much more easily, he said.
It has been a decade since the Twin Cities has gone this late into summer without a 90-degree reading and without one in the month of June. Last year, the metro saw 90 degrees or higher nine times in June. The most ever in the month was 17 days in 1933, weather records show.
The rainy pattern looks to continue as the calendar turns to July. The Weather Service predicted a 100% chance of rain Monday, with up to an inch of rain possible. Rain remains in the forecast every day this week, including the night of July 4th, which could wash out fireworks.
Will it break anytime soon? The Climate Prediction Center says Minnesota has equal chances of receiving normal amounts of precipitation during July, August and September, so maybe.
