While September worldwide produced a sea of unpleasant weather (see below),

Minnesota continued the mainly warmer than average and locally dry weather seen most of the summer. The main issue in Minnesota weather has been the dryness, concentrated in much of southern and parts of west central and east central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities. This intensified in September with most of the areas that were short of rainfall going into the month (set US Drought Monitor Before and After September to compare August 30 and September 27) missing the bulk of Minnesota's monthly rainfall (see NWS Minnesota September Rainfall). Parts of the Twin Cities had only 0.24 inch (dark blue is less than half an inch), the driest September on record, beating 1882 by 0.03 inch. That runs the rainfall shortage since May at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to 8.77 inches, Meanwhile, all of northern Minnesota and a good chunk of east central Minnesota got average to above average rainfall with more than 2 inches (yellow). St. Cloud ended up a bit below average (2.23 inches, 0.78 inch less than average), but still is running 4.60 inches above average for the growing season (April through September; see table below). The growing season rainfall ranks as the 43rd wettest out of 131 seasons on record.

Once again, the table below shows the extreme contrast over short distances in central Minnesota. Redwood Falls, with less than 10 inches of rain since April 1, is now more than 11 and a half inches behind. St. Cloud with 25.23 inches, more than 15 inches above Redwood Falls' total, is more than four and a half inches above average. While St. Cloud had prolonged dry spells (only 8 days with measurable rainfall in September, the least since March.

Temperature-wise, St. Cloud was 2.5 degrees above average (62.0 degrees) in September, the 26th warmest September of the 141 on record. But, it was still cooler than last September (62.6 degrees). Over the May through September period, St. Cloud was 2.3 degrees warmer than average, which ranks as the 19th mildest period.

Still, the growing season came to an end at the St. Cloud Airport on September 28 with a low of 30 degrees. Several stations in central Minnesota reached the middle to upper 20's, including Hutchinson, Mora, Rice (29 degrees), Buffalo, Cambridge, Little Falls, Paynesville, Sauk Centre (28 degrees) and Benson, Princeton (27 degrees). There were two days with temperatures well into the 20's for two straight days, including Celina reached 22 degrees and Brimson got down to 21.

St. Cloud Regional Airport had its the first frost since April 28. That makes an above-freezing growing season of 154 days, which is within the longest 20 percent of growing season days (bottom table). For the true end of the growing season, we will likely be waiting for October 7 or 8 when more widespread lows in the middle 20's are possible.

    September 2022 Statistics

 Last Updated: October 4, 2022