Duluth officially topped 50 degrees Thursday for the first time since Oct. 23, nearly six months, and, not to jinx it, it appears spring has finally sprung.
The National Weather Service reported 54 degrees at 5:55 p.m. at the Duluth International Airport and it couldn't have come soon enough for many folks. Even better news, high temperatures are expected to reach ito the 50s and even 60s for the next week.
And after a brutal first half of April with record low temperatures and record high snowfall, the National Climate Prediction Center Thursday morning issued its one-month and three-month forecasts that predict the Northland to be … normal.
The forecast for May calls for both normal temperatures and rainfall while the three-month forecast for May-June-July calls for normal temperatures and normal precipitation, except for a slightly elevated chance of higher rainfall in Wisconsin and Minnesota’s Arrowhead.
Let the great meltdown begin. Now it’s just a matter of whether enough warmth and sunlight will come fast enough to melt Northland lake ice in time for the May 5 Wisconsin fishing opener and May 12 Minnesota opener. It’s going to be a close call in the far north, where some lakes have nearly 4 feet of ice, and in some areas where heavy snow is protecting the ice from sunlight.
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Two Harbors hit 63 degrees for a while this afternoon under sunny skies and most reporting stations in the Northland reached into the 50s, warmer than Minneapolis and other southern Minnesota cities that had some clouds.
High temperatures around area:
- Two Harbors: 63 degrees
- Superior: 57 degrees
- International Falls: 55 degrees
- Cloquet: 55 degrees
- Duluth (Park Point): 55 degrees
- Brainerd: 55
- Silver Bay: 54 degrees
- Hibbing: 53 degrees
- Grand Rapids: 53 degrees
- Ely: 52 degrees
- Grand Marais: 41
