Minnesota Weather Almanac: Second Edition, Completely Updated for the New Normals

From the dog days of summer to “cold enough for you?” winter mornings, Minnesotans love to talk about the weather. Hot and humid or frigid and icy, the weather affects our choice of clothing, our outdoor activities, our daily routines.

 

Minnesota Weather Almanac measures Minnesota’s human history in terms of high temperatures, significant rainfall, and devastating blizzards. Organized by season, this fun and invaluable handbook showcases an astonishing variety of data and lore on weather systems past. Narratives on the character of our seasons and holidays, stories of climate stations around the state from the oldest to the coldest, and biographies of passionate weather people are accompanied by quick quizzes and colorful weather jargon. And no almanac would be complete without tables and maps illustrating such crucial details as statewide snowfall totals and extreme temperatures.

 

This fully revised edition takes into account the state’s new thirty- year normals (1981–2010), updating records for cold, heat, and precipitation. And in a chapter on climate change and Minnesota’s future, Mark Seeley draws on decades of observations to show trends and consequences of our changing climate— and highlights ways for us to adapt and to continue to steward the state’s treasured resources.

Mark W. Seeley is a climatologist and meteorologist at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. A popular public speaker and a regular commentator on Minnesota Public Radio, he is a 2014 recipient of the Siehl Prize in Agriculture.