Off the Editor’s Desk 4-19-2023

Did you enjoy the three days of summer?

Did you enjoy the three days of summer we had last week? With temperatures pushing close to 80 degrees late last week I thought that summer had arrived, but winter came roaring back and on Monday morning the ground was white again and the temperature was just below the freezing mark.

Friday, I was driving from Hayward to have lunch at the Delta Diner, but when I arrived the sign stated, “No Fool, we open on April 1st”, but they were closed on April 15th. So I went to Iron River and enjoyed a hamburger at The Other Place.

The temperature at Iron River registered on the dash of my vehicle at 74. I drove from Iron River to Ashland and with the cold wind off Lake Superior, my temperature gauge dropped to 47, so summer had not yet arrived in the northland so I made a retreat back to Hayward.

Are we about on average with the weather in this area? I looked up some information about our average weather and for our counties. August is the wettest month of the year with 4.6 inches of rain while February records only 0.7 inches of precipitation. The wettest season is autumn when we get about 41 percent of our rainfall and in the spring we get 8 percent of our yearly precipitation. Our annual rainfall in this county is 32.9 inches.

Our annual snowfall is 45.6 inches and we have six months on average that have significant snowfall. I could not find out how much snow we have had in this area this season, but the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport reported they received 78 inches as of last Friday.

For weather, in St. Croix County, there are on average 162.7 days annually when the nighttime low temperature falls below freezing with 30.8 days annually that the low temperature falls below zero. Dunn County almost mirrors these averages. My car registered 29 below on January 31st of this year at 7:54 a.m.

July is the hottest month for this area with an average high temperature of 81.9 degrees and there are 6.4 days annually when the temperature is over 90 degrees. The average high temperature for the United States is 85.8. I do not remember the last time we had a temperature over 100, so I looked to the internet for some information and I remember the old guys that I had coffee with telling me that back in the 1930s it was so hot and dry that they herded cattle up north to find green grass so the cows could be fed.

Well I found some very hot days back then with Cumberland hitting 107 on July 12, 1935, Hayward at 108 on July 12, 1936, River Falls at 109 on July 15, 1936 and Wisconsin Dells at 114 on July 13, 1936. But, other communities registered over 100 not that long ago with Baldwin having an 100-degree day on July 30, 1975, Eau Claire at 104 on July 15, 1988 and Menomonie with a 107-degree day on August 2, 1967.

When you don’t have any other thing to talk about, you can talk about the weather because it is always changing.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton