SUBJECT: Was June the winter we never had? June 1998 St. Cloud weather summary Saint Cloud had to wait until the start of summer to experience its first colder than normal month of the year. June 1998 in Saint Cloud turned out to be the first below normal temperature month since November 1997. Temperatures averaged 63.3 degrees overall, 2.0 degrees below normal. This was mainly due to the average high temperature of 73.6 degrees being 3.8 degrees below normal. The cool June was mainly driven by some very cold readings in early June. In fact, the high temperature did not break above 75 degrees until the 13th with two days (5th and 6th) not even having a high of 60 degrees. This cool spell early in the month was largely the result of the last of the arctic air in the Northern Hemisphere moving over Minnesota and slowly warming over us. June 1998 was the coolest June since the Junes of 1992 and 1993, both of which began extraordinarily cool summers throughout the United States. Those cool summers in the early part of the decade were greatly a result of suspended dust in the atmosphere from the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Phillipines. The second half of June 1998 was cloud and storm dominated as Minnesota became the battle ground between the cooler air over Minnesota and the severe heat and humidity which has held a strangle hold on the Southern Plains since May. The clash of the two air masses resulted in 4.28 inches of rain, still below the normal amount of 4.60 inches, but the most June rainfall since 1993 and only the fourth year since 1986 in which the June rainfall has exceeded 4 inches. Still, the Saint Cloud area escaped much of the heaviest rainfall, including the high precipiation totals which led to flooding on the 26th. The Saint Cloud area did not come through totally unscathed from that storm with wind gusts of 77 mph recorded at the airport and 79 mph recorded at Saint Cloud State University resulting in power outages and downed trees. The 3 Minnesota deaths recorded from that night's storms were caused by lightning strikes and flash flooding, both of which kill more people in the United States, on the average, than tornadoes. JUNE STATISTICS JUNE 1998 NORMAL TEMPERATURE ( F) Average high temp 73.6 77.4 Average low temp 52.9 52.2 Average temp 63.3 64.8 Hottest high temp for the month 86 on the 26th Coolest high temp for the month 58 on the 6th Warmest low temp for the month 66 on the 24th Coolest low temp for the month 35 on the 7th (tied record; see below) Records: Daily cold low: 35 on the 7th (tied record set in 1897) PRECIPITATION (IN) JUNE 1998 NORMAL Total for month 4.28 4.60 Maximum daily amount 1.06 on the 18th ============================================================================= Bob Weisman, Professor/Meteorologist Earth Sciences Department MS 48 Saint Cloud State University EMAIL: scsweisman@tigger. 720 4th Avenue South stcloudstate.edu Saint Cloud, Minnesota 56301-4498
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