Currently in the Twin Cities — July 18, 2024: Temperatures inching back up

The weather, currently.

Highs will be back in the low 80s by the weekend. Dew points will start to increase again too, adding to instability. We’ll likely have some isolated or spotty showers/thunder by Sunday.

Yesterday I talked about summer being halfway over and, not to be a downer, but we’re also starting to lose daylight at a more rapid pace. We’ve lost 26 minutes since the solstice nearly 4 weeks ago and by Monday we’re losing 2 minutes per day. By the end of August it’s 3 minutes per day. At least we have lots of sun continuing Thursday and Friday.

— 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.