President Elect Jason Miller presided over the meeting in President Charlie Longbella’s absence. 

 

Our Speaker today was Pete Boulay, a climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources State Climatology Office.  The topic of so many conversations in Minnesota lately has been the high temperatures and lack of rainfall.  These conditions have had a huge impact on Minnesotans and, especially on Minnesota’s farmers.  As bad as the current drought has been, Minnesota experienced even more severe drought conditions in 1936, 1959, 1988.  If not for the excessive rainfall from 2010-2019, the current dry conditions would have been even worse.  Today’s soaking rain was a blessing and Pete predicted wetter weather over the coming two weeks, but the future trend will be warmer summer and winter overnight temperatures which lead to increased soil temperature and lower soil moisture content.  Pete said another problem with the warmer winter weather is that Japanese Beetle larvae are able to survive in the soil over the winter, and each year they are spreading further north.  Pete said that even though the average temperatures are rising, temperature variability is increasing as well.  This means that we are more likely to experience extremes of hot and cold.

 

Our guests today were prospective member Finara Fang and NBMV scholarship recipient Griffin Bourassa.

 

Our next meeting will be a Club Roundtable at Silver View Park, 12 Noon, Silver Lake Rd and County Rd I.  Bring your own lunch.