A brief warmup in the forecast, plus signs of a 'more rigorous winter' ahead

NINA MOINI: Well, it's been a soggy week here for much of the state. Whether you're celebrating some long awaited rain, or you're bummed about the more darker, cloudy days, MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner has good and bad news for almost every perspective. Paul, thanks for being here.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. They say there really is no bad weather, Nina, just different kinds of good weather, depending on your perspective. Right?

NINA MOINI: Oh, totally. Some people really like the rain. So how much has fallen around the state?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. To use that old cliche, we did need this rain.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

We really needed it.

PAUL HUTTNER: We really needed this rain. It was the first significant rain in about 3 and 1/2 weeks for much of southern Minnesota, so it has been dry. We have been in a dry stretch. And over an inch fell south of the Twin Cities. Winona, 1.3. Just west of the Twin Cities, Annandale had an inch. So did Zumbrota. Rochester had an inch. Southern Twin Cities, Burnsville, 0.94. Prior Lake, Lakeville, around 8/10 of an inch.

Northfield and Fairmont about that much, too. Central Twin Cities, less. It got less as you went north. Half an inch in the central Twin Cities, about a quarter of an inch in the northern Twin Cities, and then less than a quarter of an inch in northern Minnesota. So a pretty good soaking from about the Twin Cities south with this one, Nina.

NINA MOINI: And I know for a while, we had a lot of rain. We were out of drought, and then we were back in drought. What's the latest with our drought conditions, especially since we've had all this rain?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. We're back in drought, especially now northern Minnesota. So about the northern half of Minnesota is what we call abnormally dry. I like to call that pre-drought. And 12% of northern Minnesota is in drought, and that's basically north central from the Mississippi headwaters, Bemidji, Brainerd Lakes area over to Hinckley and Duluth.

They did not get much rain, Nina, so I expect tomorrow morning, we're going to get that updated drought monitor report. That drought area is going to grow a little bit, I think, in the north. Twin Cities, we probably stave that off and in Southern Minnesota. But I do expect drought to grow. I don't see a lot of rain in the next week to 10 days, so we're going to have to watch this here over the next week or two.

NINA MOINI: And I know a lot of people are planning on maybe some outdoor high school football games. I think tonight, even, since it's MEA week. People might just be out and about. So you're tracking more rain throughout the week or less?

PAUL HUTTNER: It looks light and spotty. So we're not going to have anything like this soaking, kind of that steady rain we just had, so that's good news. If there are high school games tonight, and you're headed out, it's going to be in the 50s, maybe upper 40s. And I don't think we'll see much rain. There's a chance overnight and then a little chance Friday morning. But we're going to warm up tomorrow afternoon. We'll see 70s from about the Twin Cities south or 70 tomorrow afternoon.

And again on Friday, some 70s from the Twin Cities south and west. But then a cool front will come through Friday night into Saturday, so partly sunny, 60s, Saturday south. 50s, north. Sunday looks chilly, blustery and colder. 40s north, 50s south. We're getting some peeks of sun up north now. But Nina, where we are today, I like to call it stratus quo, because it's basically just cloudy again across most of Minnesota.

[LAUGHTER]

NINA MOINI: That's a great weather joke. I really like that. So this is a time of year, too, where we're looking ahead to official winter. Right now, you got to have your layers, and it might be 20 degrees of a difference throughout the day. But do you have a sense for the upcoming winter? I feel like I'm hearing La Niña tossed around a lot right now.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. There are a couple of signals that we watch, these climate signals coming into the upcoming winter. And most of them seem to favor a more rigorous winter for Minnesota than maybe we've had in a few years. There is a La Niña developing in the Pacific that favors colder, snowier winters in Minnesota. There's also significant snow cover in Siberia in October. That's another signal that we might have more snow than normal. And that northern Pacific Ocean has been warm. We've talked about that.

So those things would tend to favor a colder, snowier winter. Keep in mind that climate change has warmed winters in Minnesota about 5 to 6 degrees overall, so we're fighting that. But normal snowfall in the Twin Cities around 52 inches for a winter season, about 70 in northern Minnesota. We might get there this year or maybe a little higher. We will see how this all shakes out, but I think we might have more snow than we have in the last couple of winters.

NINA MOINI: It's good to be prepared if that does pan out. And what is on Climate Cast this week, Paul?

PAUL HUTTNER: So it's called continuous corn. Some cropland, about 20% of it in the Midwest, grows corn year after year on the same land, and that can produce higher greenhouse gas emissions. But there are also cost effective solutions to mitigate that. We'll talk about all that tomorrow during All Things Considered on Climate Cast.

NINA MOINI: All right. Thanks so much, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.