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Whither the weather? Check our musical meteorology list

This has been one great run of beautiful weather, but we Minnesotans know it won’t last. So, I wanted to get us ready for the inevitable change of seasons with a review of a few musical meteorological terms.

This has been one great run of beautiful weather, but we Minnesotans know it won’t last.

So, I wanted to get us ready for the inevitable change of seasons with a review of a few meteorological terms and conditions that dot weather reports throughout the year.

And since my scientific knowledge is far from advanced, I’m going for just the basics and — just for fun — a sampler of song titles that contain weather terms. (There must be hundreds, so I limited every category to only one to three, but feel free to add your favorites in the Comment section below.)

Temperatures
Hot: Sly and the Family Stone’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime”

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Cold:  The Pixies Three with “Cold, Cold Winter” and Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice”

Warm: Connie Francis’ “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter”

Cool: The Fabulous Wailers’ “Tall Cool One”

Wide-ranging weather conditions
• Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”

• Chi Coltrane’s “Thunder and Lightning”

• Lou Christie’s “Lightnin’ Strikes”

• The Classics IV’s “Stormy”

• The Murmaids’ “Popsicles and Icicles”

Rainy weather
• The Sir Douglas Quintet’s “The Rains Came”

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• Jane Morgan’s “The Day That the Rains Came”

• Dinah Washington’s “September in the Rain”

Sky conditions
• Barry McGuire’s “Cloudy Summer Afternoon” and Simon Garfunkel’s “Cloudy,” including the great lyrics:

“Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell.
Down from Berkeley to Carmel …”

• Hoagy Carmichael’s “Ole Buttermilk Sky” 

High winds
• Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” and Glenn Yarbrough’s “The Honey Wind Blows”

Sunshine songs
• The Rivieras’ “California Sun”

• Ray Charles’ astounding “You Are My Sunshine”

• Tommy Edwards’ mellow “Please Mr. Sun”

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Winter weather
And I’ve saved the worst for last with our long-range forecast: winter. Here are two sad songs of that season — first, a clever, quintessential teen’s-lost-love lament, and then an absolute tear-jerker:

• Diane Ray’s “Snow Man”

• And then Gentleman Jim Reeves’ heartbreaking “The Blizzard.”