Cody Matz

A wild weather day is ahead for the Twin Cities metro, which could see a little bit of everything from snow to sleet to freezing rain to thunder and lightning. 

Cooler weather has snow on the minds of some Twin Cities area residents as the region enters the time of year where snow can start flying.

After finishing the warmest June in 15 years in the Twin Cities, we crank up the heat even further as we head through the first week of July and our long Independence Day weekend. While highs in the upper 80s and low 90s are far off from daily record highs, and not exactly unusual around here in July, it will likely be the persistence of these 90 degree temps that will wear us down… and could set records themselves.

Particles of dust from the Sahara Desert may land in Minnesota in the days ahead. Yes, I am referring to the desert in Africa.

The really warm start to June may have escaped you, it’s a summer month after all so the warmth is expected, but I doubt the wind has blown by you without notice. Gusty breezes have made themselves well known over the last few days with what has felt like one long never ending gust. While Minnesota is a fairly breezy place, especially farm country across the western half of the state, the first half of June has been a bit unusual.

Tropical storm Cristobal is nothing special. It’s one of likely a dozen or more tropical storms that will form during the Atlantic hurricane season this year. But this ordinary storm could become one of the most unusual in North America in the last 200 years.

Consider this your A.C. warning! While it’s been nice and comfortable the last few weeks, Mother Nature is about to dial up the heat really quickly. In fact, some of us maybe exceeding 90˚ already by Monday afternoon. So if you haven’t tried turning on your A.C. yet to see if it works, I would give it a whirl because you are definitely going to need it by Monday afternoon.

2020 is finally living up to the spring many of us look forward to: gradually rising temperatures, occasional rains, very little snow. That’s pretty much what we’ve seen. It’s certainly been far more “spring like” than the last couple of years.

Much of the area started our Tuesday back below freezing, the third or fourth time that’s occurred over the last week. But this will likely be the last frozen start to our day for the foreseeable future and is quite likely to be the last until the fall as our pattern shifts going forward. But despite some mild days, the Twin Cities has yet to make it to 80˚ this season, much later than average.

Here comes the most classic Minnesota weekend ever that may just push our passive aggressiveness toward spring into full on panic mode.