Warm and dry May to be followed by a warm and dry June

The Northland has closed the books on May 2023, and it was generally warm and dry. Of the official climate sites in the region, Ashland was the closest to normal for mean average temperature finishing out the month only 0.3° above average.

Even with a lot of east wind days, Duluth’s mean average temperature was 2° above normal. Meanwhile, the mean average temperature was 4° above normal in Hibbing, 4.5° above in Brainerd, and 6.3° above in International Falls.

While this was well above average, it still wasn’t a May for the record books in International Falls. Their average temp of 57.4° still fell short of the record of 60.9° in 1977.

International Falls was the wettest climate site, and it still fell short of average precipitation by 0.9″. Hibbing picked up close to an inch in the last two days of the month, but still closed out May 1.05″ below normal.

Brainerd’s total precipitation was 1.64″ below normal. Duluth was drier yet missing the average by 2.57″, and Ashland was the driest with monthly rainfall a full 3.14″ below average at 0.31″.

The Storm Track Weather team anticipates another warm and dry month for the region in June. This is supported by the monthly precipitation and temperature outlooks provided by the Climate Prediction Center.