The year 2010 saw the return of outdoor major league baseball to Minnesota, but no one expected the return of outdoor pro football as well. From a giddily warm spring to December snows that collapsed the Metrodome, it was a year of delightful -- and brutal -- weather surprises.
Minnesota saw more tornadoes than in any previous single year, including 48 in one day. Flash floods ravaged small bluff-country communities. A "land hurricane" roared across the state with intense low pressure, high winds, rain and snow.
And yet we basked in an early, dry spring that led to a longer and warmer-than-normal growing season. And while rainfall set records in many places (statewide, 2010 was the second-wettest year on record), that rain seemed to avoid Target Field. (Only one game was rained out.)
From beginning to end, our weather confused and confounded and continued to raise a question that hovers over life in Minnesota: "How DO you dress for this?"
For an interactive weather graphic, plus links to past years, go to here.
