Hennepin West Mesonet Extremes of 2021
February
Long awaited, we are going to look back on the 2021 year of extremes here in Hennepin County, data provided by our mesonet network. In 2021, we experienced a flash drought and saw an overall lack of rain events, with our greatest 24-hour rainfall accumulating 2.85 inches (almost half of the previous year's extreme value). We saw over three times the number of days below 32 °F in greenfield as we saw days above 90 °F in Minneapolis. Dayton saw our lowest wind chill, with a reading of -46.5 °F on February 14th, while Minneapolis saw our highest temperature of 99.6 °F on June 5th. May 5th saw the greatest 1-hour temperature change in Corcoran of 16 °F. This big air temperature drop was from a cold front passage.
