The hottest heat index in Minnesota Tuesday was 115 degrees
The heat index in Hutchinson, Minnesota on Tuesday afternoon climbed to an unbearable 115 degrees.
That's according to the National Weather Service, which released the hottest heat indices in Minnesota from Tuesday's scorcher. The extremely hot "feels like" temp reached 115 in Hutchinson at 4:55 p.m.
The NWS doesn't say what the specific air temperature and dew point was to create that value, but it would take some combination of extremes of both ends. For example, when it's 100 degrees outside the dew point has to be 75 – which is rain forest-like – to get the heat index to 115.
The hottest it got at MSP Airport was a whopping 109-degree heat index at 7:10 p.m. By midnight when storms were rolling into the metro, the heat index was still in the mid-to-upper 90s in the Twin Cities.
The hottest in the Twin Cities metro was Blaine and Falcon Heights at 110 degrees.
The list released by the NWS Chanhassen, which covers most of southern and central Minnesota and western Wisconsin, includes 73 heat index reports. Fifty-six of the 73 are at least 100 degrees, and 13 hit or eclipsed 110.
- 115 degrees – Hutchinson at 4:55 p.m.
- 113 degrees – Rockford at 6:30 p.m.
- 113 degrees – Madison at 6:15 p.m.
- 113 degrees – Redwood Falls at 6:53 p.m.
- 112 degrees – Glencoe at 5:35 p.m.
- 111 degrees – Buffalo at 6:55 p.m.
- 111 degrees – Granite Falls at 6:55 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Becker at 6:55 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Hanover at 6:50 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Saint Bonifacius at 6:39 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Falcon Heights at 7:11 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Blaine at 7:10 p.m.
- 110 degrees – Princeton at 7:35 p.m.
The heat and humidity helped fuel after-dark storms that plowed through southern Minnesota late Tuesday night, reaching the Twin Cities metro around midnight and producing damaging winds that knocked down trees and took out power.
The strongest wind gust – an 81 mph burst – was picked up by a MnDOT sensor three miles west of Hector at 11:02 a.m. That same storm pushed east and produced a 67 mph gust at the Hutchinson Airport at 11:19 a.m., with storm reports out of Hutchinson saying trees at least 20 inches in diameter were downed on houses, yards and streets.
At 12:20 a.m. a trained spotter measured a 67 mph wind gust in Bloomington, while MSP Airport documented a 62 mph gust. while trees were knocked down in Uptown, the Dayton's Bluff area of St. Paul and numerous other communities in the metro.
