The end of September meant that St. Cloud just finished a severely warm and dry warm season so far. From May 1 through September 30, St. Cloud rainfall ranked as the 5th driest with 10.52 inches, 7.50 inches below average, and the driest since 1976 (see table below) and as the third warmest with 68.1 degrees, 4.1 degrees above average and the warmest since 1936. September itself was the third warmest with an average temperature of 65.6 degrees, 6.1 degrees above average.

And, the rainfall could have been a lot worse. There were 2.55 inches of rain since September 22, part of the huge rains in the eastern half of Minnesota over the past two weeks. Before that rain, St. Cloud would have set the all-time record for May-September rainfall with only 7.97 inches. And, the rains have continued into early October with another 0.81 inch at the St. Cloud Airport. So, the St. Cloud Airport has picked up 3.36 inches in the past 16 days. The rains have been even heavier (red areas on the NWS Minnesota 14-day rainfall map) from Two Harbors through the Twin Cities and in patches of west central Minnesota. The average amount for the entire month of September is 3.01 inches. However, southwestern and northwestern Minnesota continued to be missed. Despite the substantial rainfall lately, we need a lot more. St. Cloud through October 6 was still 7.29 inches behind since May 1 (11.33 inch actual, 18.62 inches average). For the year through October 6, St. Cloud was still nearly 3 inches behind on precipitation (21.30 inches actual, 24.23 inches average).

The rain did ease the drought classification in much of the eastern half of Minnesota, eliminating the most severe drought classification (dark red on the US Drought Monitor two week comparison; set times to October 3 and September 19) and greatly shrinking the extreme category (bright red).

The Sauk River elevation is still only 0.75 feet and the Mississippi River is only at 4.6 feet. Parts of the Mississippi River in central Minnesota and the Minnesota River have well below average streamflow.

And we finished on a high note. Both the record warm low (64) and the record warm average (72, tie) fell on Saturday and we swept all the temperature records on Sunday: new record warm high (91), record warm low (65), and record warm average (78).

    September 2023 Statistics

 Last Updated: October 7, 2023