Part Of Northern Minnesota Hit By Rare Weather Phenomenon

The weather in Minnesota can be pretty wild and unpredictable, but something that happened this morning in Northern Minnesota got especially weird.

While we get some pretty crazy temperature swings sometimes in Minnesota, they usually end up being things like a sudden cool-down when the wind changes off Lake Superior in places like Duluth and along the North Shore.

The opposite happened in Northwestern Minnesota this morning, where a sudden increase in temperature saw a rise in temperatures by nearly 20 degrees, into the 90s, in a pretty small area. That isn't all that happened, though.

Here's a look at what happened, how common this is in Minnesota, and other times it has happened in Minnesota history.

Who turned the heat (way) up?

A climatologist in North Dakota, who monitors weather across that state and parts of Western Minnesota, reported something called a "heat burst" happened overnight, cranking the heat way up in a pretty small area in Northwestern Minnesota.

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The weather station in Fertile, Minnesota, saw a pretty sudden rise in temperature overnight, going from around 70 degrees at 3 am to over 90 degrees by around 3:40 am. Things quickly cooled back down to around 70 degrees in the course of about 20 minutes, shortly before 4 am.

While temperatures shot up, dew points dropped considerably, going from around 70 degrees to a very dry dewpoint of around 40 degrees as temperatures soared. Just like the temperatures, the dewpoint recovered as temperatures cooled.

At the same time, winds gusted up to around 30 mph in the area. Wind (sometimes destructive) is common with heat bursts. Thankfully, it wasn't that crazy with this one, but there have been some in Minnesota with storm-like wind gusts. More on that in a bit.

READ MORE: Rare Phenomenon Temporarily 'Drained' Lake Superior - What Caused It?

A weather station in the nearby town of Beltrami also saw a sudden spike in temperatures up into the 80s, while Crookston saw a slightly less dramatic spike from 70 to around 78 degrees.

This map shows the small area of high temperatures recorded by the National Weather Service during the hour this happened on Thursday morning. You can see a small cluster of higher temperatures in the area near Fertile.

Other towns in the area, like Mahnomen and Fosston, didn't see any spikes at all in temperature. The "heat burst" was limited to a relatively small area, but apparently a few happened in North Dakota overnight as well.

What causes a "heat burst"?

What causes such a sudden increase in temperature overnight in such a small area?

The National Weather Service describes them as "interesting, relatively rare, atmospheric nighttime events characterized by gusty winds, a rapid increase in surface temperature, and a decrease in surface dewpoint."

That is what was observed near Fertile, with a quick rise in temperatures, a drop in dewpoint, and some gusty wind conditions.

The NWS says there are two key pieces that contribute to a heat burst like the one seen in Minnesota overnight.

The first piece is a dissipating thunderstorm or rain shower, while the second piece is the presence of hot and dry atmospheric conditions at the midlevel of the atmosphere. In short, once the rain shower or thunderstorm loses its updraft as the storm dies, a downdraft of that dry and warmer air above creates "heat burst" conditions closer to ground level.

It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the basics of what causes it.

How common are heat bursts in Minnesota?

In short? Not very common. They're pretty rare across the country, but tend to be more common in the plains states.

They're most likely to happen in the spring and early summer months. There have been a few other recorded incidents of heat bursts in Minnesota in recent years, including one in Tracy in June of 2022, when temperatures went from 80 to 93 degrees with a wind gust of 52 mph in the early morning hours.

Another was in Southwestern Minnesota in July of 2006, where temperatures shot up to 100 degrees with a wind gust of 63 mph shortly before midnight in Canby, and nearby communities like Willmar and Benson saw nearly 20-degree temperature increases with wind gusts around 40 mph.