December 2009 Saint Cloud Weather Summary

Saint Cloud Weather Summary for December 2009 and Annual Weather Summary for 2009

     December 2009 Statistics

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Year of Extreme Weather Results in Near Normal Conditions
2009 Annual Saint Cloud Weather Summary

2009 was a year of major weather impacts on the Northern Plains with a continuing drought situation in much of Minnesota, historic spring flooding along the Red River, and a summer that didn't happen. However, the overall statistics ended up being very close to normal.

2009 Precipitation

The total St. Cloud precipitation was 28.58 inches, 1.45 inches above normal, with enough precipitation to cause flooding problems in March and April along the Red River, but enough dryness to continue a two year growing season rain shortfall.

Wet Winter and March Produce Record Red River Flooding

Just as the winter was ending, St. Cloud posted its wettest March ever with more than four and a half inches of rain. There were two major late month storms, one producing mostly rain in central and southern Minnesota with snow off to the northwest and a Late March Blizzard dumping up more than 2 feet of snow.

The first storm produced a new record for St. Cloud rainfall in March with 2.49 inches falling on March 23. The second storm dumped 9.2 inches of snow on St. Cloud, setting new snowfall records on both March 31 and April 1. The snow and rain were heavier in the Upper Red River Valley, leading to serious Red River Flooding. In fact, the Red River remained at flood stage in Fargo-Moorhead for 62 straight days from late March into early May (see Fargo flood photos from North Dakota State Unversity)

In St. Cloud, both the Mississippi River and Sauk River were high with minor flooding along both rivers. The Sauk River in St. Cloud reached its third highest level ever at 8.19 feet on March 27. The Mississippi River near Riverside Park reached its third highest level with a stage of 9.79 feet on March 30. This led to some flooding along 4th Avenue N. and the fishing pier below the Mississippi River Dam going under water.

Ironically, some heavy thunderstorm rainfall in June produced more flooding along the Red River in Fargo-Moorhead during the summer.

Dry Summer Period Similar to Recent Summers

After the heavy rains of March, St. Cloud ran up rainfall deficits during five of the following six months. At its worst, St. Cloud was 4.37 inches behind in rainfall between April 1 and August 6 with areas of west central Minnesota and from St. Cloud through the Twin Cities as many as 12-16 inches behind. Heavy rainfall in the middle two weeks of August relieved some of the conditions, but the second driest September in St. Cloud (0.61 inch) knocked the rainfall deficit to 4.91 inches at the end of September.

This led to near record low levels of the Mississippi River level at St. Cloud in late September. The Mississippi dropped to 4.13 feet, the fifth lowest river stage seen at this gauge (note that the third lowest level of 3.71 feet was seen in September 2007 , which isn't listed in the records). The Sauk River in Waite Park dropped to 1.01 feet, the 5th lowest stage seen on that river. ( In August 2007 , the Sauk River was down to 0.37 feet). End of September rainfall deficits were 6-9 inches in parts of west central Minnesota and from the Twin Cities Metro to Taylors Falls.

Relief finally came in the form of St. Cloud's 3rd wettest and 10th snowiest October. This October included two of St. Cloud's five earliest snowfalls in October. The cold, wet, and snowy Octoberconditions were felt statewide, helping the moisture balance, except in north central Minnesota but delaying harvests.

However, several of these heavy rain periods hit the Kimball area hard, so that eastern Stearns County ended up being one of the few wet areas, even at the height of the dry conditions.

Agriculture, in general, had a difficult year, since farmers had to wait longer than usual to plant, because of the wet March and large snowfall, then plants were behind due to the cool and often cloudy summer. The warm, dry September helped crops mature, but the wet October kept farmers from harvesting until the edge of the snow season.

Farmers were again helped out a bit by a very dry November, only the 13th November in St. Cloud with trace or less of snow.

If it seems like dry summers have become the rule in central Minnesota, the historic St. Cloud May-August rainfall backs up this idea. You can see that rainfall varies highly from year to year, but the 5-year running average (magenta) has been near or below the average of 14.67 inches (red dashed line ) for most of the past 15 years with the mid-2000s being as low as during the drought of the early 1950's.

Severe Weather

The long gaps in warm, humid weather led to a relatively quiet severe weather year. The tornado season got off to a very late start with no twisters until June 17 . A small tornado did move through southern Minneapolis on August 19 , dispelling the myth that tornadoes can't happen in a large city. Statewide, there were 24 tornadoes in 2009 .

The worst severe weather to hit central Minnesota was a hail and wind storm on June 18 . Hail larger than golf balls was dropped just to the north of St. Cloud from Albany and Holdingford to Rice and Gilman with a 52 MPH wind gust in Rice. There were funnel clouds seen in St. Cloud on July 14 , but the biggest result that produced some localized flooding in the city.

2009 Temperature

The average 2009 St. Cloud temperature was 41.7°F, exactly normal for the year. This came despite wild fluctuations in temperature, especially during the second half of the year.

Second Straight Cooler Than Normal Cold Season Breaks a Trend

January and February finished only the second recent winter with colder than normal conditions . The average winter temperature of 9.4°F was the coldest winter since 2000-2001 and produced 54 days with a low of at least zero and 12 days with a low of at least -20 (11th most in St. Cloud records). This also included a low of -36°F on January 16 , the first low colder than -30 since January 30, 2004 and the coldest low since the last time St. Cloud reached -40 on February 2, 1996 .

Cold temperatures have been usual in recent winters in St. Cloud. As you can see on the graph of annual winter temperature , the last two cold winters were a drastic change from the 1996-2007 period. This period featured the warmest streak of 5-year average temperatures ( dashed red ) since records began in 1891.

2009: Year Without a Summer?

2009 will probably be remembered as the year without a summer. The most extreme month was July 2009, which ended up being St. Cloud's third coldest July and the third coldest July in Minnesota . While July was the coolest month of the summer, the cooler than normal weather continued throughout the summer. The warmest day of the year was May 20 , with a high of 92 degrees , only one of two days with a high of at least 90 all year. This heat was felt on May 19 and 20 throughout Minnesota. Of the 103 days that followed, only 26 days had an above normal temperature with only 3 July days having an above normal temperature.

The summer of 2009 tied 1884 as the ninth coolest St. Cloud summer since temperatures began in 1881. Still, it wasn't quite as cool as 2004, which was nearly another degree cooler and ranks as the fourth coolest summer.

The trend in St. Cloud summers , however, is towards cooler than normal summers. Over the past 15 years, there have been more cooler than normal summers than warmer summers. In fact, except for 1988, there have been few summers that have approached the heat of the Dust Bowl summers in the 1930's. The decade of the 2000's has been one of the few with more above normal summers than cooler summers, but only by a small margin.

Roller Coaster Fall

After the non-summer, St. Cloud began a wild roller coaster ride of temperatures. September resembled August weather for much of the month, only falling out of the 10 warmest Septembers on the last day of the month. Then came the rainy October, which also ended up as the 9th coldest . In contrast, November ended up being the third warmest November in St. Cloud records and the second warmest November statewide . St. Cloud had the smallest difference between October and November temperatures and the only year in which the high temperature for November was warmer than the high temperature for October. But, as noted above, December 2009 brought the opposite weather for two cold weeks, followed by warm weather during the stormy late month.

2009 Snowfall

The 2009 snowfall in St. Cloud ended up being a little above normal. The total was 50.3 inches, 2.7 inches above normal. In our relatively mild year, the 5-year average seasonal snowfall showed a downward trend, but the variation from season to season was quite high. The only trend in recent years is that the high snow years have not been as high since the record snow year of 1964-1965 and the low snowfall years haven't been as low since the 16.1 inches in 1986-1987.