Weather in Minneapolis in August

A good month. August is a solid month to be in Minneapolis. Highs average 27.1 °C, lows 15.4 °C, and rain falls on 12 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

August ranks 3 of 12 in Minneapolis. Only September scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 12 days, 4 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 6 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest August day reached 37.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 6.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 48 mm — roughly 45% of the month's rain in one day.

August is moderately variable: 22 mm in the driest year against 189 mm in the wettest, around an average of 107 mm. Roughly two Augusts in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 5.9 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 70%.

How August sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.5 °C in July, 27.1 here, 23.1 in September. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in August

14.1 hours of daylight, losing 1.4 hours across the month. That is between Minneapolis's extremes of 15.6 and 8.8 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Minneapolis has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 43.8 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

August in Minneapolis versus nearby

If Minneapolis is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sioux Falls is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Des Moines is the weaker option in August — 2.4 °C warmer, the same number of rain days.

So: August is effectively as good as it gets here — 5 points behind September, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Minneapolis

See all twelve months in Minneapolis, or where else to go in August.