MN Autumns Are Warming Fast: Here's How Recent Falls Stack Up Since 1895

ST. PAUL, MN — If it feels like Minnesota's autumns don't bite the way they used to, the numbers back that up.

The state's average fall temperature has climbed over the last 130 years, and the warmest stretch on record is happening right now, according to statewide data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information.

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NOAA tracks Minnesota's statewide average temperature for meteorological fall, September through November, every year back to 1895. Across the 20th century, that average was about 43.2 degrees.

The last five falls, 2021 through 2025, averaged 48.2 degrees. That's about 5 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm.

Seven of the nine warmest falls in Minnesota history have come since 2000, including four of the last five. Fall 2024 set the all-time record at 50.1 degrees, the first time the statewide fall average reached 50 degrees. Fall 2025 followed at 49 degrees, the fifth warmest on record.

The 2024 season's warmth was driven largely by a record-warm September, which beat the previous record set in 2015 by 1.4 degrees, according to the Minnesota DNR's State Climatology Office.

Here are Minnesota's warmest falls since 1895, according to NOAA:

1. 2024: 50.1 degrees
2. 1963 and 2016 (tie): 49.7 degrees
4. 2015: 49.4 degrees
5. 2025: 49 degrees
6. 1931: 48.7 degrees
7. 2021: 48.4 degrees
8. 2023: 47.8 degrees
9. 2004: 47.6 degrees
10. 1953 and 2001 (tie): 47.5 degrees

Broken down by decade, the shift is even clearer. From the 1900s through the 1990s, every decade's average fall temperature landed between about 42.4 and 44.1 degrees. The 2000s jumped to 45.4 degrees, and the 2010s came in at 45 degrees. Through six falls, the 2020s are averaging 47.4 degrees.

Over the full 131-year record, Minnesota's fall temperatures have risen at a rate of roughly 2.2 degrees per century, based on a linear trend of the NOAA data.

Cold falls haven't disappeared entirely. Fall 2018 averaged 40.8 degrees, and 2019 and 2020 both came in below the 20th-century average. But the coldest falls on record mostly date to much earlier. The coldest was 1896 at 36 degrees, and the most recent fall to land among the 10 coldest was 1993, at 39.6 degrees.