by Northern News Now meteorologist Dave Anderson
My parents were from the era after Elvis and before The Beatles so we played a lot of Herb Alpert and Ferrante & Teicher albums in our house. I think the wildest thing they had was Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” LP. These days I’ve been modifying that song’s opening lyric to “hello drought monitor my old friend, I’ve come to look at you again.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that Cook, Pine, Aitkin, Carlton and Saint Louis Counties are all in category D2 severe drought. Lake County is in D1 moderate drought. There’s been a lot of talk about the La Nina effect bringing precip back to our weather this winter. The process will try to start in November. Temperatures and precip totals should go back to normal this month.
Temperature-wise, the year 2024 has featured six warmer than normal months and four that were normal with no cooler than normal months. November should start the 1st to 8th with a chilly period with some snow showers, the 9th to 14th should be dry and mild, the 15th to 20th will become cool with mixed rain and snow, the 21st to 26th could be cold and snowy with the 27th to 30th turning into a warm spell.
The hard-working crew at National Weather Service Duluth have formulated their winter forecast. They think we will be normal for temps for most of the region but colder than normal west of Bemidji into the Dakotas. Snow totals will be normal for Minnesota but Wisconsin may get more than normal.
Even normal would be more than last year so I’m personally all for that. I just picked up a 77 Ski Doo that actually runs and normal snow should be just fine for that.
