Minnesota is all wet!

Several days ago we facetiously updated our woolly bear caterpillar forecast for the upcoming Winter. Today we discovered NOAA's climate outlook for the 2019 - 2020 Winter. It confirms our forecast. Although it's dated the day before our discovery of additional wooly bear evidence, we swear we hadn't seen NOAA's assessment until this afternoon. If you scroll down on their page tot he Temperature outlook for Minnesota, you'll note that the odds are even that we'll be warmer or cooler than average and that it's likely Winter will be wetter than average. That's pretty much what the woolly bears predicted in the aggregate.

isn't there supposed to be a silver lining somewhere?

Photo by J. Harrington

Our discovery of the climate outlook was triggered by today's search to see if we've yet broken the record for wettest year on record in the Twin Cities. We saw a notice a day or so ago that said we were within 2.5 inches of the annual record. The day's rain must already be an inch or more. It was .93" at 12:53 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport [MSP]. For today and tomorrow the predicted rainfall amount is 1.5" - 2.0". We still have two months plus before year's end. The Minnesota Weather Almanac informs us that the average monthly precipitation at MSP is 1.77" in November and 1.16 in December. Unless our pattern breaks abruptly and we start a drought, I think we've got the "All Wet Record" in the bucket.

Closer to home, the Sunrise River pools in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area are holding more water than we recall seeing at this time of year. A wetter than normal Winter may well make for a particularly interesting Spring with snow melt, frozen ground and already high water. If our long term climate will now be wetter than the historical averages, will the folks around White Bear Lake petition Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for more groundwater pumping to keep the lake from flooding surrounding properties?

Rain

By Peter Everwine

Toward evening, as the light failed 

and the pear tree at my window darkened, 

I put down my book and stood at the open door, 

the first raindrops gusting in the eaves, 

a smell of wet clay in the wind. 

Sixty years ago, lying beside my father, 

half asleep, on a bed of pine boughs as rain 

drummed against our tent, I heard 

for the first time a loon’s sudden wail 

drifting across that remote lake— 

a loneliness like no other, 

though what I heard as inconsolable 

may have been only the sound of something 

untamed and nameless 

singing itself to the wilderness around it 

and to us until we slept. And thinking of my father 

and of good companions gone 

into oblivion, I heard the steady sound of rain 

and the soft lapping of water, and did not know 

whether it was grief or joy or something other 

that surged against my heart 

and held me listening there so long and late.

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