October 2023 Saint Cloud Weather Summary

October Fills Out Weather Bingo Card

Saint Cloud October 2023 Weather Summary  

Near Record Warm May Through October

What did October 2023 produce?

1. Heat
   • 90 degree highs? October 2023 had two, including the hottest October temperature in St. Cloud records (91). Many records were set statewide.
2. Rain
   • Huge rain offsetting a chunk of the dry warm season? October had 3.81 inches of rain, including a record 1.54 inches on October 13. The May through October precipitation gap closed from nearly 10 inches in late September to 6.30 inches (see table below)

3. Cold (end of Growing Season)
   • First frost? 30 degrees on October 10. Still, this frost was about two weeks later than average.
   • First hard freeze? 24 degrees on October 28, leaving a growing season relative both to 32 degrees and 28 degrees in the longest 10 percent of seasons (see table below)

4. Snow
   • First snow? 2.5 inches on October 30-31, most in October since 7.2 inches fell on October 20, 2020. More fell along the Lake Superior shore of northeastern Minnesota.
   • and we even missed a bigger one
5. But, no severe weather..... (there was in southern Minnesota)

Rainfall Made Up About One Third of Warm Season Shortfall (Wetter to South)

The result was an offset of the lack of rain during the 2023 warm season. The rainfall deficit was the largest between May and mid-September (9.86 inches behind; 7.97 inches actual, 17.83 inches average; see above table), but St. Cloud picked up 6.36 inches from September 22 through the end of October, making up about a third (3.09 inches) of the big deficit.

Ross Carlyon, National Weather Service Twin Cities climate guru, broke down the history of St. Cloud warm season rainfall between the equinoxes. He showed that, in 2023, St. Cloud had a shortfall well over 9 inches, making it the 5th driest warm season between the March and September Equinoxes. On the other hand, the period from September 23 through the end of October was the 5th wettest in St. Cloud records, making up over 3 inches of the rain shortfall.

According to the comparison between the October 31 US drought monitor and the September 19 US drought monitor (set to those dates on the two week comparison page), all of the area in the extreme (bright red) and exceptional (brown) drought categories had eased. In the Twin Cities, where even more rain fell (over 2 inches Oct 12-14; half inch to 2 inches Oct 23-28), with over 5 inches (red) for the month, all of the drought categories were dropped. In north central and central Minnesota, the 6-inch plus rainfall deficits since May still have the lower two categories of drought (shades of tan). Central Minnesota is running out of time to make up the shortfall before the ground freezes for the winter and the early November pattern hadn't produced much precipitation.

Warm October Makes 2nd Warmest May Through October

Temperature-wise, the heat through the first two-thirds of October had threatened a top 10 warmest October since the average temperature was in the lower 50's. This was a statistical outlier, since only 8 days were more than 10 degrees warmer than average (October 5-17 was within 5 degrees either side of average). But, the late season cold, as well as the rapidly falling normals (high temperatures 10 degrees above average are in the 70's during the first week but are in the 60's in late October), cooled the monthly average to 49.4 degrees, 3.7 degrees above average. That was merely the 31st warmest out of the 141 Octobers in St. Cloud records.

Still, it was yet another milder than average month, so the May through October average temperature is 65.0 degrees, 3.9 degrees above average. That's the second warmest May-October temperature in St. Cloud records. Only 1900 (66.6 degrees) was warmer. St. Cloud 2023 is 0.3 degrees warmer than the 3rd place year of 1921. Basically, all of 2023 has been warmer than average, except in March and April, when the prolonged snow cover kept temperatures down.

The two 90-degree-highs at the start of the month ran the warm season total to 24 days, which tied 1935 as the 11th most number of 90 degree days on record. That was the most since the severe heat wave and drought year of 1988, which had 33 days with a high of 90 or above, 7 of which were 100 or above. 1988 is still the only year since the 1930's in the top 10 in 90 degree days and accounted for 7 of the 11 100 degree days since 1950.

    October 2023 Statistics

Last Update: 8 November 2023