Twin Cities saw warmest year on record

Don’t let 2025′s frigid start deceive you, the Twin Cities just experienced a record-breaking warm year.

The National Weather Service reported that 2024 marked the warmest year on record for Minneapolis and St. Paul, as temperatures rose to an average of 50.9 degrees — one-tenth of a degree higher than the previous record set in 2012 and 1931.

A strong El Niño boosted temperatures last winter and climate change fueled the year’s record-breaking temperatures, said Mike Griesinger, a lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Chanhassen.

“Last winter was hard to call a winter,” Griesinger said.

Duluth, St. Cloud and Fargo also experienced their warmest years on record, according to the Weather Service. Temperatures trended above normal across the country, but the shift was most pronounced in the northern states, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, Griesinger said.

Six of the 10 warmest years in the Twin Cities came after the year 2000. The average temperature for 2023 was 49.9 degrees, marking the fourth-warmest year on record.

January through the first two weeks of March and September to November were exceptionally warm periods, Griesinger said.

“You may not realize it was the warmest year on record because our warmest season, we just had very ... mundane temperatures,” Griesinger said about the summer.

Temperature trends are looking different for 2025, Griesinger said.

“It looks much cooler this winter,” he said. Early indicators reveal that the region may experience a mild summer, he added.