ST. PAUL, Minn. - Whoa, another 90-plus day in May.
"There is a strong relationship where, if you do have a lot of hot days in May, that does tend to lead to hot days in summer," said Dr. Kenny Blumenfeld, the Senior Climatologist with the DNR Climatology office.
All right, numbers!
OK, the Twin Cities averages 13 90-degree days a year. Going back to the 1870s, we've had multiple 90-degree days in May just 16 percent of the time. But when it's happened, historically, our average for the year has nearly doubled to 23 90-degree days.
"Yeah, about three-quarters of the time we end up with a really hot summer following a May that you would consider to be really hot," said Blumenfeld.
We're up to six 90-degree days in May, the second most of all time. But April was the snowiest ever and the fourth-coldest in history.
So, it's been one extreme to the next. What does that mean for our summer?
"I wish we had an easy answer," said Blumenfeld. "We don't really have any examples of going from cold then to hot that dramatically."
Blumenfeld added, "So, there's really a lot of uncertainty that leaves climatologists sitting on the edges of their seats: 'Well, what's going to happen, is it going to be a hot summer?'"
We saw the same thing 30 years ago. In 1988, we had four 90-degree days in May, then set a record with 44 that year.
"That was a memorable one and I can say, even though we try not to play favorites with the weather, you don't want that because that was extreme heat, it was a drought," said Dr. Blumenfeld.
So history suggests a hot summer, but, you know, we'll see.