November 2016 is on pace to become one of the warmest

Late Sunday night the temperature began a steady rise as a low pressure system moved up from the south bringing heavy rain to western Minnesota.
By shortly after 3 a.m. Monday the high had reached 48 degrees. Then it gradually fell into the upper-30s as the rain began to tapper off. But out to the west the lower pressure system was drawing down cold Canadian air to mix with another wave of moisture headed this way, turning it to snow and ice.
The relatively warm rain melted what snow was on the ground from the nearly 6 inches received Nov. 18. Most lawns were green and free of snow Monday afternoon.
So far this November the area has received 1.73 inches of precipitation. That is 51 hundreds of an inch above the average for the month of 1.22 inches. It also brings the year’s total precipitation to 30.41 inches – 3.11 inches more than the annual average for the Benson area of 27.3 inches.
November is likely to go down in the record books as the third warmest on record, but depending on just how cool it gets Tuesday and Wednesday, it could be the second warmest.  So far, the high has averaged 51.4 degrees and the low 30.8 degrees.
The warmest November on record was back in 2001 when the high averaged 53.5 degrees and the low 32.3 degrees. Last November entered the record books as the fourth warmest on record, but will now get moved down to fifth.
With this year’s unusually warm November, the five warmest Novembers on record (going back to 1953) have all occurred since 1999....
 
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