The Weather Has Voted...For Change!

After suffering through the second coldest last half of October on record, we are about to be rewarded with a week of unseasonably warm temperatures, says climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld. “There are going to be parts of Minnesota on Friday morning and Saturday morning where the temperatures might not fall below 50, which is kind of mind-boggling for November,” says Blumenfeld. “If you combine that with the potential for highs above 70, you’re looking at a daily average temperature that could be around 60. That’s pretty sneaky for November, so we’ll have to keep an eye out to see if we’re as warm or as anomalously warm as we had just been anomalously cold because that would be quite a swing."

Blumenfeld says the Twin Cities’ weather on Election Day has varied widely over the years. “We’ve had everything from rain and thunderstorms to beautiful weather, and we’ve also had snow either on the ground or falling,” says Blumenfeld, who notes that a record high of 71 was set on Election Day in 2008, and the record low for the day is 9. The average high temperature for the Twin Cities on Election Day is 49.

Blumenfeld and co-host Jim du Bois also preview the upcoming episode which will focus on historical weather events that have taken place between November 9th and 12th including the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 and the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. “I can only say as someone who’s looked at all the charts and who studies the history of the weather that there’s something about November 11th in particular that really has put an imprint on weather history,” says Blumenfeld.