Our weather in December was very routine or average except for the big storm about the middle of the month! Our December 2021 temperature averaged 3.5 degrees above normal. So the pattern for almost all of 2021 of warmer than normal continued right up to the end of the year. Precipitation for December was just slightly above normal while most of 2021 was below normal. But, as I mentioned the major weather story for the entire year occurred in the middle of December.

Tom Hoverstad Scientist at the Southern research and Outreach Center at Waseca (SROC) said the huge storm in the middle of December was very unusual. "It was like a hurricane in the middle of the country." Warm moist air was pulled into Minnesota and we saw a record high temperature on December 16, 2021 of 62 degrees. It was also the latest date of the year that we exceeded 60 degrees! In addition it was the first time we had tornadoes in Minnesota during December!

The top wind speed at SROC was 54 miles per hour but there were many reports of 60 mile an hour winds! I did look up the National Weather Service definition of a Derecho and you could say it was a Derecho in Minnesota the middle of December. Up until a couple years ago when Iowa was hit during the growing season I had never heard of a Derecho!

If there was a positive side, we were fortunate that our Derecho did not occur during the growing season like the one in Iowa! Tom added at SROC there were a number of evergreen trees that were uprooted while the deciduous trees were not. Maybe because their leaves had dropped last fall so there was less wind resistance? Click on the link and listen to Tom discuss our December 2021 weather!

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