Last week started warm and humid, but a strong cool front came through the night of June 26, bringing some Jonathan Cohenmuch-needed rain and much-appreciated cooler and drier weather with dew points in the 50s and even upper 40s.
For the period, temperatures were back below average, albeit by only 1 degree, as June ended with an unusual sub-70-degree high.
As a whole, June was rather unremarkable as it was a bit on the cool and dry side. The first half of the month was very cool, but then it turned warm before ending cool again. The average temperature was 64.8 degrees, which was 2.6 degrees below my mean and 1.6 degrees cooler than the long-term average. The monthly highs and lows were rather extreme: The high was 92 degrees on June 23, while the low was 43 degrees on June 9. We set or tied three record-low highs in a row June 6-8, with highs only in the low- to mid-50s those days.
Rainfall for June was 3.69 inches, which was about .9 inch below my mean and .4 inch below the long-term average. With only February having seen above-average precipitation, our moisture deficit for the year has now climbed above 5 inches.
The short-term outlook is for that deficit to grow, as the only chance of rain in the next week is a small chance of showers on Independence Day itself. Temperatures should warm to average by the weekend, but there is no sign of the heat and humidity we encountered in late June.

By Jonathan Cohen, Prior Lake observer for the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District