Minnesota Just Set A New Sunny Record

Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but maybe it should be the Land of 10,000 Sunny Days instead.

One of the great things about living here in Minnesota is that we get to experience all four of Mother Nature's seasons each year, all of which come with their own unique weather. From those cold, snowy days in the winter, to the first warm days of spring, the hot, humid weather during the summer and the gorgeous crisp weather each fall, when it comes to weather, we get it all here in the North Star State-- sometimes on the same day, or so it seems.

But this year, our weather here in Minnesota just did something that's a bit unusual. In fact, it's something that hasn't EVER happened here in the Gopher State. Well, it hasn't happened here in the Bold North in the last 74 years, back to when meteorologists first started keeping track of this kind of thing.

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So what did we do? We had a TON of sunny days throughout September. In fact, if you thought it was pretty much sunny EVERY day in September this year, you're correct-- or pretty close, anyway.

That's the word from retired Twin Cities TV and radio meteorologist Paul Douglas. While Paul's not on any Minnesota broadcast media daily anymore, he's still very much plugged into what the weather is doing across our fair state. And he just pointed out that September 2024 was 'Minnesota’s sunniest month on record,' dating back to 1950.

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In a post on his X (formerly Twitter) page, Paul quoted PhD climatologist
Brian Brettschneider who had the specifics:

September 2024 was one of the least cloudy Septembers on record for the Contiguous U.S. For Minnesota, not only was it a record for least cloudy September, it was a record for least cloudy month overall using this dataset (1950-present).

Neither weather expert said exactly how many sunny days we experienced in September, but according to the Current Results Weather and Science Facts page, we usually see between 6 to 10 days of sunshine in September, ranging from 6 in Duluth and International Falls, to 9 in Rochester and 10 in St. Cloud and the Twin Cities.

But apparently, we saw many more than that last month! Now, when it comes to this winter, are we expecting that trend to continue, or will it be the complete opposite? Keep scrolling to check out some hints that Mother Nature drops throughout Minnesota to find out!

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