Currently in the Twin Cities — July 17, 2024: Our welcome dry stretch continues

The weather, currently.

Well, we’ve reached the halfway mark of meteorological summer if you can believe it. It’s the coolest first half of summer in the Twin Cities in a decade. What’s remarkable about that is that we’re only averaging -0.5 deg F below normal. That’s just how warm/hot our summers have been lately.

Of course it’s also been wet. The Twin Cities has received 1.5 times the normal rainfall for the first half of summer. Luckily we have very little rain in sight: maybe just isolated thunder by Sunday. Temperatures will remain cooler than average the rest of the week also with highs in the 70s, warming into the low 80s by the weekend.

— Sven Sundgaard

What you can do, currently.

A Media Matters analysis found that last year — the hottest calendar year on record — network coverage of climate actually declined in the US. What’s worse, just 12% of reports about climate change mentioned fossil fuels as the driving cause. The media still reported on extreme weather, but stopped short of making the climate connection.

Independent climate journalism like Currently is needed more than ever. And this year, with all of these weather warnings already underway, we’ll unfortunately have plenty of opportunities to do better.