Minnesota weather: Here's how much rain has fallen in first half of summer
Downpours cause flooding in MN: Rainfall totals
Several inches of rain fell across west-central Minnesota this week, with some areas picking up more than 4 inches of rain. The Ortonville area in Big Stone County saw flooding due to the heavy rain.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Does your yard look a little crispy or is it totally waterlogged? Well, if you live anywhere in the Twin Cities metro (or much of the state really), it could be either one at this point into summer.
A mostly ‘average’ summer
The backstory:
We are now halfway through meteorological summer, and it's been a lot more "average" than many of us may realize. While there have been some extremes, and temperatures have been a bit above average the last couple of weeks, this year has been a lot closer to average than the last few.
With that, though, comes the typical sporadic dispersion of precipitation. While winter often gets the headlines with occasionally crippling snow, the summer can swing wildly in one direction or another as well... and sometimes that can occur in almost the same neighborhood.
There's a reason the age-old phrase "When it rains, it pours" is still often used today. Because it's very much based on truth. During the summer months, when the amount of moisture in the atmosphere can be incredibly high, often times when it is able to rain, it unleashes a torrent. But these torrential downpours can encompass an incredibly small section of land. In some cases, a square mile or less.
Rain totals
Dig deeper:
This is often why, when we talk about rainfall totals this time of year, we are usually rounding to the nearest inch or are incredibly vague. One example earlier this year, is that my neighbor's house (three doors down, maybe 200 feet away) had a quarter of an inch more rain in a brief afternoon storm than my house did.
Both rain gauges were working properly and placed appropriately in our yards. A quarter inch difference in 200 feet! Now, multiply that by a couple of miles, and different parts of your city can have drastically different rainfall totals over time.
By the numbers:
The Twin Cities metro is a perfect example. Here's a compiled list of rainfall totals since June 1st from across the metro. If there were multiple totals from the same city, I averaged them. So here is what the metro looks like.
Map of average metro rain totals. (FOX 9)
The metro has averaged roughly 6.5 inches of rain for the last six weeks, meaning anything that starts with a six is right around average. In fact, MSP Airport has received a little more than 6 inches so far since June 1 (one of the driest spots in the metro), which means the metro is officially below average.
Rainfall at MSP-Airport.
But, look at the difference across the cities! Parts of Maple Grove, Plymouth, and even sections of Minneapolis have seen nearly double what the airport has. This is why my lawn in Burnsville may be a little crispy right now, while parts of the northwest metro are a soggy mess.
It's similar across the state as a whole as well. These are radar rainfall estimates, so they're certainly not perfect, but it gives a general idea of what the area has seen so far since June 1.
The two areas I've circled are the really wet spots (pictured above). The larger oval that extends into the west metro is an area that is generally several inches above average. But the smaller red oval is an area of even wetter conditions that is just small sections of Kandiyohi and Meeker counties where rainfall totals are close to 24 inches in some spots, which is easily three times the average. There have been a couple reports of over 21 inches from both counties, so I'd say the estimates are pretty close.
So what do we see moving forward? Well, I don't think this occasionally stormy pattern is going to go anywhere over at least the rest of July. But where those storms end up and how much rain is coming is just luck of the draw. But if it's anything like what we've seen so far, then some random heavy downpours are probably on the horizon.