St. Paul hit 52 degrees on Thursday, a record for Jan. 30, though temperatures are expected to drop as a cold front comes through in the evening.
The Twin Cities’ previous Jan. 30 record of 48 degrees happened in 1879 and 1989. And it wasn’t the only area in Minnesota to reach a new temperature record on Thursday. St. Cloud beat its previous record of 44 degrees, at 49 degrees.
Rochester, which has averaged a high of 23 degrees at this time, beat its previous record high of 48 degrees on Jan. 30, 1919. The city reached 56 degrees by Thursday evening, according to the National Weather Service Twin Cities. Duluth came within one degree of its 1890 record of 44 degrees.
“So, lots of records being broken today across the state,” said Bill Borghoff, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service Twin Cities.
The highest temperature the Twin Cities has recorded in January was 58 degrees on Jan. 25, 1944.
Temperatures are expected to drop ahead of the weekend as a cold front comes in Thursday evening, bringing temperatures down around 10 to 15 degrees, though snow is not expected, Borghoff said. At an expected high of around 40 degrees Friday, temperatures are still about 15 degrees above the average for this time of the year, said lead forecaster Mike Griesinger at the National Weather Service Twin Cities.
A weak weather system could bring light snow on Saturday and Sunday, especially further north, before an arctic front arrives on Sunday night.
A large pool of warm air has settled across the southern half of the state and into Wisconsin, with temperatures generally in the low 50s, Borghoff said. Central Minnesota has stayed somewhat cooler, in part due to some snow still on the ground.
“It would be hard to get, especially today with a light wind, it would have been hard to get to 50 degrees if we had eight inches of snow on the ground,” Griesinger said Thursday. “And it’s just because so much of the sun’s energy just gets reflected right back into space by the snow.”
By Monday, temperature highs are expected to be in the teens. Temperatures next week are expected to steady, with some possibility of light snow and with highs generally expected to be in the mid- to upper teens to mid-20s.
“We’re going back to reality next week,” Griesinger said.
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