Stretch Of Soggy Weather Spells Trouble For Outdoor Recreation Businesses

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- For the past few days across the Twin Cities, it has been feeling more like summer again.

But that hasn't been the case lately, with several days below average for this time of the year. We look into how it's affecting the outdoor recreation business.

Soggy, stormy and unseasonably cool. We've seen plenty of that recently. The beach at Lake Calhoun, empty... as well as the water.

"People don't show up to like come rent because they either get scared off by the wind, the rain, the weather," Bryayan Guevara said.

Guevara runs Wheel Fun Rentals, where unfortunately the kayaks, canoes and pedal boats have been spending more time on land than on water.

"It's kind of like a bummer. We always want to have good weather because that means we'll have good business," he said.

"On a beautiful day it's a lot different than this. We usually have nice, glassy area in front of us. Instead of having it be totally open back here, there'd be a hundred plus people from either Wheel Fun or with us on any given day that'll be out paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing," Robbie Brink said.

Just across the lake, Brink and Tommy Miller, owners of SUP Calhoun say, the better the weather, the better the business.

"With all the colder weather that we've been experiencing this month, whether it's sunny, windy days or cold, rainy days, it's just we've been definitely a bit below what we're normally seeing," Brink said.

Low 80s are our average highs for the end of June. Last weekend we had highs in the mid to upper 60s. At this point, the 4th of July is looking dry and much warmer, but Miller and Brink say they're still hoping for the best.

"We're hoping that a lot more people come outside and maybe generate a little bit more business that way," Brink said.

Even though it has been cool recently, we're actually running three degrees above average for the month so far. We had four days where we topped out in the 90s -- one of them, June 10,where we made it all the way up to 96 degrees.