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Video: Protests in Ferguson over George Floyd death | ksdk.com KSDK.com
The police fired tear gas near the White House on Sunday night to dissuade protesters who had smashed the windows of prominent buildings, overturned cars and set fires, with smoke seen rising from near the Washington Monument.
The White House went dark, turning off almost all of its external lights, as protesters seethed in dozens of cities, again defying curfews to demonstrate against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in police custody.
It was the sixth day of nationwide unrest since the death of Mr. Floyd last week in Minneapolis. Mayors imposed curfews and several governors mobilized the National Guard, but that did not quell widespread protests in cities across the country, some of them marked by violence and looting.
Protests have erupted in at least 140 cities across the United States in the days after George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody. Some of the demonstrations have turned violent, prompting the activation of the National Guard in at least 21 states.
Protests since Wednesday
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In Birmingham, Ala., protesters started to tear down a Confederate monument that the city had previously covered with a tarp amid a lawsuit between the state attorney general and the city.
In Boston, a police S.U.V. was set ablaze near the State House, sending up a column of black smoke after a large group of protesters had mostly dispersed.
In Philadelphia, police officers in riot gear and an armored vehicle used pepper spray to try to repel rioters and looters. A wall of officers blocked an entrance ramp to Interstate 676 in the city, where the mass transit system suspended service starting at 6 p.m. as part of a citywide curfew.
In New York, demonstrators marched across the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, snarling traffic. The Manhattan Bridge was briefly shut down to car traffic. Chaos erupted in Union Square at around 10 p.m., with flames leaping up two stories from trash cans and piles of street debris. The night before in Union Square, the mayor’s daughter, Chiara de Blasio, 25, was among the protesters arrested, according to a police official.
In Chicago, the police superintendent, David Brown, excoriated the looters on Sunday as Gov. J.B. Pritzker activated the National Guard at the city’s request.
In Louisville, Ky., a tense confrontation in the middle of a crowded street was partially defused when a black woman stepped forward and offered a policeman in riot gear a hug. They embraced for nearly a minute.
Peter Baker in Washington
Tonight the city police widened the perimeter, blocking of streets as a mile away from the White House while police in riot gear confronted protesters in the north section of Lafayette Square.
Hundreds of protesters remained from earlier demonstrations in the day, surging and chanting and pushing against the line of police, then falling back. Some threw water bottles, set off fireworks and torched at least one vehicle.
Soon after St. John’s Church, the so-called “church of presidents” where every chief executive going back to James Madison has worshiped, soon erupted in flames in the basement.
Businesses nearby boarded up after damage from the night before, including the iconic Hay Adams Hotel and the Oval Room restaurant. Businesses far away from the White House boarded up to protect themselves as well. Helicopters hovered overhead.
Jack Nicas in Oakland, Calif.
Close to downtown, a few hundred protesters peacefully marched through the streets, chanting and carrying signs.
Behind the diverse crowd, Donavon Butler, 33, drove a white minivan with his wife and four children inside. His 5-year-old son, Chase, hung out the back window with his right fist raised and his left hand holding a cardboard sign that said “Mama! I can’t breath. Don’t shoot.”
“The world we live in is not equal. People look at us different,” Mr. Butler said he told his son.
Matt Furber in Minneapolis
Steps from the Third Precinct police station that protesters stormed on Thursday night is Stanford Middle School. The pandemic had closed the school since March, but students were still able to receive school lunches. Now, the unrest has made the building inaccessible and shops and supermarkets shuttered, leaving hundreds of the school’s students potentially without food.
Volunteers and school staff jumped into action to start a food drive. Donations included loaves of bread, apples, carrots, rice and beans.
“It is like viral beyond all comprehension,” said Amy Nelson, the school principal. Donations started at 10 a.m. and withing a few hours, she said, there was enough food to fill several trailer trucks.
Richard Fausset in Atlanta
The demonstrators stopped, hundreds of them, black and white, and they sat. A self-appointed leader among them, an entrepreneur named John Wade, praised them for their nonviolence. But he warned them not to keep marching up the hill. The cops were up there fighting it out, he said, with “the non-compliant people.”
The organizers told everyone to turn off Centennial Olympic Park Drive, and veer away from the trouble. A police officer told them not to walk forward.
Then the tear gas started.
People chanted the way they do at Atlanta ball games, riffing on the old song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”
“We ready, We ready, We ready, for y’all,” they sang.
Jack Healy in Denver
Two Atlanta police officers were fired on Sunday, one day after videos emerged showing them using stun guns on two black college students and then dragging them out of their car.
Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, announced the dismissal of the two officers, whom she did not name, during a news conference on Sunday. She said their actions had constituted “excessive force.”
Ms. Bottoms said three other officers who were involved in the arrests had been reassigned to desk duty while the department reviews their actions.
“It was disturbing on many levels, the least of not which was that there clearly was an excessive use of force,” Ms. Bottoms said. “We understand that our officers are working very long hours under an enormous amount of stress, but we also understand that the use of excessive force is never acceptable.”
Ms. Bottoms said she had reviewed police body camera footage of the confrontation and that it should be released immediately. The episode was broadcast live on local television on Saturday night, showing a group of officers stopping a man and woman in their car near downtown Atlanta roughly 45 minutes after a curfew went into effect at 9 p.m. It was unclear what prompted the police to stop the car.
The actions of the Atlanta officers came amid intensifying scrutiny of how law enforcement was responding to demonstrators.
Chief Erika Shields of the Atlanta Police Department condemned the actions of the officers, saying that the two students had been “manhandled” and that the episode had only underscored the fear and wariness minorities have of the police.
“I am genuinely sorry,” Chief Shields said. “This is not who we are. This is not what we’re about.”
The most jolting scenes of violence late Sunday appeared to take place in Manhattan, where chaos erupted in Union Square at around 10 p.m. Flames nearly two stories high leapt from trash cans and piles of street debris in the neighborhood, sending acrid smoke into the air.
Protesters threw bottles and other objects at police officers armed with batons who pushed into crowds on Broadway and nearby side streets. As flames spread across one downtown street, officers ordered protesters to disperse. In Soho, looters smashed windows and stole merchandise from upscale stores.
Around 11 p.m., hundreds of protesters faced off against the police near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Overhead, a police helicopter monitored the scene.
Police vehicles raced to the area as water bottles and other objects rained down on officers. Peaceful protesters fled the area as tension rose, but others moved closer to the police, who quickly swept demonstrators out of the area.
A tanker truck barreled through thousands of protesters in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, coming to a stop as the crowd parted to avoid getting hit.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety said that no one had been struck by the truck, although some protesters told local media that they had seen people with injuries. The police said the driver was “inciting” the peaceful protesters, and that he had been arrested and treated at a hospital for non-life threatening injuries
As the tanker truck came to a stop, demonstrators who had just sprinted from its path swarmed back toward it and pulled the driver out of the cab, according to videos from the scene. As people ran toward the driver, several protesters shouted for them to not hurt him and tried to create a buffer zone.
The confrontation took place on Interstate 35, which had been partly closed to traffic because of the protest, and the police said they were working with transportation officials to determine how the truck had gotten onto the highway.
“I don’t know the motives of the driver at this time, but at this point in time, to not have tragedy and many deaths is simply an amazing thing,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said at a news conference. He called video of the episode “horrifying.”
The protest had been peaceful and well-organized; the Department of Public Safety had tweeted updates about the group’s location and said its officers were working to keep the demonstrators safe.
A combative President Trump on Sunday berated Democrats for not being tough enough on violent protesters and attributed the turmoil roiling the nation to radical leftists.
Spurning advice from some campaign advisers to deliver a nationally televised address, Trump instead spent Sunday out of sight.
But he kept on tweeting.
“Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors,” he wrote. Addressing his presumptive Democratic presidential opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., he added: “These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW. The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe. Is this what America wants? NO!!!”
The president also said his administration “will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” employing a shorthand for “anti-fascist.” But antifa is a movement of activists who dress in black and call themselves anarchists, not an organization with a clear structure that can be penalized under law. Moreover, American law applies terrorist designations to foreign entities, not domestic groups.
While Mr. Trump has been a focus of anger, particularly in the crowds in Washington, aides repeatedly have tried to explain to him that the protests were not only about him, but about broader, systemic issues related to race. Privately, Mr. Trump’s advisers complained about his tweets, acknowledging that they were pouring fuel on an already incendiary situation.
“Those are not constructive tweets, without any question,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate, said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Mass protests that have brought thousands of people out of their homes and onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases.
More than 100,000 Americans have already died of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. People of color have been particularly hard hit, with rates of hospitalizations and deaths among black Americans far exceeding those of whites.
While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus.
The protests are occurring as many states have warily begun reopening after weeks of stay-at-home orders.
In Los Angeles, where demonstrations led to the closing of virus testing sites on Saturday, Mayor Eric Garcetti warned that the protests could become so-called “super-spreader events” that can lead to an explosion of secondary infections. And Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, expressed concern that his state would see a spike in cases in about two weeks, which is about how long it takes for symptoms to emerge after someone is infected.
Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission. In addition, many of the demonstrators were wearing masks.
As President Trump painted the National Guard as key to restoring order and taunted Democratic governors and mayors for not calling out the troops, the generals in charge of troops in three states said on Sunday afternoon that they had been only in support roles and had not used any force to put down the civil unrest.
The leaders of the Minnesota, Georgia and Colorado National Guards made clear that while troops had probably had a deterrent effect, the bulk of the credit for containing the violence went to local police officers. National Guard forces have been used mostly to secure buildings, allowing more police officers to move to the front lines, they said.
“Our purpose is to allow our local law enforcement professionals to do their jobs,” said Gen. Jon Jensen, the leader of Minnesota’s National Guard. “We do that by relieving them of items like infrastructure security.”
The forces in Minnesota and Georgia are armed, but the Colorado troops have only nonlethal weaponry. The generals did not describe under what conditions they would use force, only that they would be proportional and used in self-defense.
General Jensen said he had requested additional military police battalions from the National Guard forces of neighboring states, but said he would not recommend the Minnesota governor request regular Army forces for that job, as Mr. Trump has offered.
Army Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden Jr., the adjutant general of the Georgia National Guard, expressed dismay that his forces had to be called out for a domestic civil unrest mission.
“We in America should not get used to or accept uniformed service members of any variety having to be put in a position where they are having to secure people inside the United States of America,” General Carden said. “While we are honored to do it, this is a sign of the times that we have to do better as a country.”
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London on Sunday afternoon and marched toward the United States Embassy, the most visible sign of popular support overseas for the protests across the United States against police killings of black people. Protests also took place in Germany and Denmark.
Holding signs and clapping their hands, the protesters in England gathered in Trafalgar Square in defiance of stay-at-home restrictions in effect across Britain to fight the coronavirus pandemic. They chanted “I can’t breathe,” “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” before crossing the Thames to march peacefully to the embassy.
The protest march on Sunday echoed one on Saturday in the Peckham district of South London and another one on Sunday outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen. Another London march is planned for next Sunday.
Several hundred protesters also rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on Sunday, holding up signs saying “Justice for George Floyd” and “Stop killing us,” Reuters reported.
In Germany’s top soccer league, two players — the English forward Jadon Sancho and the French striker Marcus Thuram — made references to the killing of George Floyd as part of goal celebrations during matches on Sunday.
As cities and states brace for more demonstrations in the coming days, the authorities have responded by calling in more resources and readjusting previously held plans.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster on Sunday, an action that enables him to designate federal agents to serve as Texas peace officers. The Republican governor, who activated the Texas National Guard a day earlier, issued the disaster order after protests in the state’s major cities touched off confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement.
“As protests have turned violent in various areas across the state, it is crucial that we maintain order, uphold public safety, and protect against property damage or loss,” Mr. Abbott said in announcing the disaster declaration. “Every Texan and every American has the right to protest and I encourage all Texans to exercise their First Amendment rights,” he said. “However, violence against others and the destruction of property is unacceptable and counterproductive.”
And in South Florida, Mayor Carlos Gimenez of Miami-Dade County postponed the planned reopening of beaches following the lockdown because of the pandemic. Miami-Dade beaches had been scheduled to open on Monday.
“The beaches will remain closed until the curfew order is lifted,” Mr. Gimenez said in a statement on Sunday. He cited an emergency order he signed on Saturday imposing a countywide curfew after a small group of protesters set police cars on fire outside the Miami Police Department’s downtown headquarters.
The beach reopenings would have involved a significant police presence. Condominium pools and hotels in the county will be allowed to reopen on Monday as planned.
Reporting was contributed by Mike Baker, Peter Baker, Julian Barnes, Johanna Barr, Ellen Barry, Katie Benner, Alan Blinder, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Chris Cameron, Shaila Dewan, Johnny Diaz, Caitlin Dickerson, Nicholas Fandos, Tess Felder, Ben Fenwick, Manny Fernandez, Russell Goldman, Maggie Haberman, Rebecca Halleck, Zach Johnk, Steve Lohr, Patricia Mazzei, Shawn McCreesh, Christopher Mele, David Montgomery, Derek M. Norman, Elian Peltier, Roni Caryn Rabin, Rick Rojas, Simon Romero, Marc Santora, Charlie Savage, Neil Vigdor, Ali Watkins, Mihir Zaveri and Karen Zraick.
Fiery nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd entered their sixth day on Sunday, with initially peaceful gatherings giving way to a terrifying confrontation between activists and a rogue truck driver in Minneapolis, a fire on the White House grounds in Washington, and spectacular scenes of looting in Manhattan.
A tanker truck barreled into a crowd on the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, the city where Floyd cried “I can’t breathe” as he was held down by the neck just prior to his death in police custody.
Laura Eltawely told The Daily Beast she and her husband, Ahmad, along with their four small children, were trying to exit the bridge when police drove up an entrance ramp and inexplicably fired tear gas into the crowd fleeing the truck.
“They were openly gassing people that they knew were running away from the incident they were responding to,” Eltawely said Sunday.
The couple and their kids, aged 1 month to 10 years old, took shelter in an apartment building.
“This was a daytime peaceful demonstration,” Eltawely added. “We had no idea there would be clashes with police.”
The truck driver, who was arrested, was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
In New York City, despite clashes in lower Manhattan, police seemed to abandon much of the island to looters, who ransacked some of the most valuable retail real estate on the planet.
Best Buy. North Face. Coach. Kate Spade. Apple.
After 10 p.m., rioters in Union Square ignited boxes outside the Strand bookstore. They were also captured on video smashing the windows of a Walgreens pharmacy and also looting a GameStop store.
At one point in Midtown Manhattan around 11 p.m., a protester dished out iPads to an assembled horde. Minutes earlier, an activist could be he heard intoning, “You’re going the wrong way! Marshalls is that way!”
In Los Angeles, an alleged hit-and-run in Pershing Square downtown was captured on video shared by Twitter users on Sunday afternoon. Demonstrators chased the police vehicle after it hit a man, whose injuries were unclear, and spun around. As hundreds gathered for peaceful protests, others looted businesses in Santa Monica, including the city’s Third Street Promenade. One activist tried to stop looters from breaking into an REI store on Santa Monica Boulevard. Firefighters extinguished cars and buildings in flames in the city, and police eventually showed up to arrest alleged thieves.
Cops in downtown Seattle hurled tear gas and flash-bangs into a crowd of protesters, who ran from the smoke. People raised their arms and shouted, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” National Guard trucks, with soldiers in camouflage, rolled through the streets where volunteers cleaned wreckage that morning. A resident could be overheard intoning, “I must say, the cops seem to be showing some restraint today!”
In Washington, D.C., things were calm two hours before the first night of an 11 p.m. curfew. Crowds gathered at metal barricades erected at the entrance to Lafayette Park, which surrounds the White House, and Rondell Jordan, a 30-year-old lawyer, said he planned to leave “before the shit hits the fan.”
“And it should,” he added.
But just before 11 p.m., rioters packed the streets and set St. John's Episcopal Church on fire. The historic church, built in 1815, is one block from the White House.
They also torched at least one vehicle, a small building that holds restrooms on the White House grounds, and dragged a massive tree branch into the street as kindling for a bonfire. The AFL-CIO building was broken into and vandalized with graffiti, including “Fuck the Police” and “Fuck 12.”
Soon after, a fire was set inside the lobby. One block away, police guarded the St. Regis luxury hotel.
In Chicago, there was less plenty of looting in broad daylight. A drive from The Loop to the city's Deep South Side saw nearly every block feature at least one battered business. One beat cop bemoaned to The Daily Beast, "These aren't protesters, they are opportunists. They are just destroying and looting because it's the cool thing to do."
Likewise, in Philadelphia, crowds of people destroyed police vehicles and ransacked stores throughout the city.
Some residents told The Daily Beast the plundering of businesses did little in furthering justice for Floyd. “So, everybody’s saying that this is all for George, and it’s really not,” said Jessica Conyers, 29. “Y’all basically doing for y’all selves. Stealing is not justice.”
“Some of the people don’t even live in the neighborhood,” Calvin Walker, 58, chimed in. “They doing it ’cause they doing it. It’s not about the protests.”
Enraged white residents of working-class neighborhoods in South Philadelphia were out in force on Sunday night as the sun went down announcing a mandatory 6 p.m. curfew. Dozens of people lined Front Street near Snyder Avenue, a traditionally Irish and Italian neighborhood.
The thoroughfare, which abuts a shopping center, is the heart of an insular community that includes the famous “2 St.”—home to most of the Mummer clubs that march each year in Philadelphia's New Year’s day parade. The clubs have been the source of controversy in past years as participants have a shirked a ban on blackface.
Residents seemed to have counter-protest on their minds.
“We’re just making sure everything’s OK,” said one woman, who would not provide her name.
“We’re going down there locked and loaded.” clarified a man looming near Broad Street.
Looters at a Foot Locker store on Chestnut Street in West Philly were met with police forces, and rubber bullets and canisters of tear gas were fired into the crowd.
“We were standing across the street from Foot Locker and we noticed a crowd of people running out and a crowd of cops running toward them. And then we see a cop jump in front of a motorcycle to stop this man and they start hitting him right away. I say, ‘Hey, I got you on camera,’” said one witness, Cordarrol Washington.
“And that’s when he got violent. She got shot,” Washington continued, pointing to a woman being treated by paramedics, “and I got shot multiple times.”
Locals told a Daily Beast reporter they were outraged by the devastation. Some even begged for the looting to stop, as volunteer medics poured water into people’s faces and offered masks and hand sanitizer. At least one business owner, Won S. Hwang, drove to the scene to protect his store. Hwang, a discount hair supplier, said he’s owned his shop for 30 years and has “never seen it like this.”
Cheryel-Lynn Sumpter, a 28-year resident and homeowner, told The Daily Beast: “I am not mad with the police today. I’m mad at people running around and stealing. Because y’all wanna come out here and steal. This has nothing to do with George Floyd. Now we can’t even walk outside because people came down here with bags and stuff. Why am I getting tear gassed in my own alley?”
Rick Bell, a 45-year-old teacher, said he “can’t count how many times” he’s been harassed by police and underscored the importance of the protests against police brutality. “People are tired. This cannot continue to go on,” Bell said.
“I agree looting is not the thing we should be doing,” Bell added. He suggested people go on social media to “see who’s really looting.”
“It’s not just young black kids. It’s everyone across the board,” he said.
In Minneapolis, a crowd of thousands gathered earlier Sunday near the Cup Foods store, just outside of which Floyd was killed. Speakers took turns invoking Floyd’s name, and making clear why protesters and members of the community remain unsatisfied with the lone arrest of Chauvin. “When we say ‘no justice, no peace,’ we mean no justice, no peace,” said one speaker who was born in Floyd’s native Houston.
This gathering was peaceful and without any police officers, who spent Saturday night firing on protesters and chasing them all over the city in sporadic and chaotic clashes that went deep into the night.
Nancy Alayon, owner of Quetal, a Salvadoran food truck, planned to hand out 1,500 free meals thanks to $4,000 raised by loyal customers.
“We’re all feeling this collective grief,” she said.
Hours later, after a local curfew, a crowd approaching 1,000 ended their day of demonstrations in the same spot. Kendrick Benson, a 28-year-old native of Minneapolis’ north side, stood on a parking meter pay station and addressed the crowd.
“This is a sacred safe space here tonight,” Benson said. “You have a right to grieve. You have a right to mourn. No one can take that away from you.”
Benson, who was in the city visiting from his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said he stayed in town when “this war started.”
—With reporting by Spencer Ackerman and Danny Gold in New York City, Jonathan Ballew in Chicago, and Sam Brodey in Washington, D.C.
Police form a line on H Street as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Sunday, May 31, 2020, near the White House in Washington. Alex Brandon, AP
For the sixth-straight day, demonstrators took to the streets across the country Sunday to protest systemic police brutality and racism following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. The Washington Post reports, “Police arrested more than 2,500 people in two dozen U.S. cities over the weekend.” But that was before Sunday night was over.
On Sunday, Washington, D.C., joined the 40 cities that have imposed curfews, aiming to stem the violent turn the demonstrations have taken over the weekend. As our colleague Nathalie Baptiste reported, “Police officers in cities around the country responded to protesters with egregious tactics, from unprovoked violent shoving to indiscriminate pepper spraying.”
Mother Jones’ Julia Lurie has been reporting on the protests on the ground in Minneapolis, and Stephanie Mencimer and Will Peischel were on the scene in D.C. Here’s what they’ve seen.
Update: cops surrounded the crowd, protesters are on the ground, being arrested one by one. If all reporter photos look the same it’s bc press was told to stay on a bench or else they’d be arrested pic.twitter.com/hVZRRP5sRo
— Julia Lurie (@julia_lurie) June 1, 2020
Protest down Chicago Ave in Minneapolis. Not heard on camera: the kid with the bullhorn saying “I’m just a sophomore in high school. I shouldn’t be doing this. Where are our leaders?” pic.twitter.com/j3bIoPWPDf
— Julia Lurie (@julia_lurie) May 31, 2020
After a day of peaceful protests in DC, as night fell, thousands of protesters gathered on the streets near the White House. A few hours ago, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced an 11 p.m. curfew and activated the National Guard to assist D.C. police.
Cops just smoke bombed the crowd #DCProtests People are running and screaming. pic.twitter.com/Fp1j0mQ1xX
— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 1, 2020
People coughing and choking and getting doused with water to deal with the smoke bombs #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/ObX5X7Q9gF
— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 1, 2020
This are getting out of hand by the White House. “This isn’t right,” a guy next to me says. “This is our city.” #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/u5sCvCy2TP
— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 1, 2020
With the 11PM deadline approaching, police and protestors are locked in a cycle of protestors approaching the fence, eventually being gassed and pelleted, then moving back to. pic.twitter.com/ts8sauDbYC
— will “uhh” peischel (@will_peischel) June 1, 2020
It sounds like a war zone down here. Helicopters, sirens and booms.#DCProtests
— Stephanie Mencimer (@smencimer) June 1, 2020
As this was unfolding a few blocks away, CNN reported that President Donald Trump was briefly taken to a White House bunker.
This is a breaking story.
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - June 1st marks the beginning of meteorological summer, which starts the hottest 3 month stretch of the year in the northern hemisphere and covers June, July, and August. For Lincoln, average highs during this time start on June 1st at 80°, but by July 1st reach 89° and then stay in the mid to upper 80s all the way through the end of August.
For Lincoln, we haven't really had much warm weather yet this year, as both April and May finished a few degrees below average. In fact, for Lincoln we've only seen one day reach 90° or better this year and we've only had another 6 days so far this entire year in the 80s. The combined 7 days in the 80s and 90s so far in 2020 is about half of what we'd usually expect.
For those folks who'd prefer the warmer weather though, the forecast over the next few weeks has a much more summer-like feel to it as above average temperatures are expected not only over the first week of June, but for the month as a whole.
The Climate Prediction Center's temperature outlook for June heavily favors above average temperatures across much of central plains. Now keep in mind, this doesn't mean that every single day in June will see above average temperatures, but rather the month as a whole at any given location across the state has good odds (about 60% to 70%) to finish the month warmer than average. With average highs climbing from the low 80s to the upper 80s through the month, this likely means we'll see lots of days with highs potentially into the 80s and 90s in June - something again we haven't seen much of so far in 2020.
The outlook for June isn't just for warmer than average temperatures, but the CPC's outlook also favors drier than average conditions across the southeastern half of the state.
Again, this doesn't mean that June won't see rain, just that the pattern over the next month would at least slightly favor not as much rain as we usually see across parts of the state. For Lincoln specifically, we average 4.22" of rain in June and it is on average our wettest month of the year.
The drier than average outlook is certainly something to keep a close eye on as so far in 2020 our precipitation in Lincoln is a little more than 1.00" below average. Areas of "abnormally dry" conditions have also been spreading across the southern sections of the state over the past few weeks according to the drought monitor.
