Everything you’d expect for July

I'm suspect many of us recall when it heats up in July and the humidity tends to increase. We are approaching he mid point of the meteorological summer. Temperatures in the 80s to lower 90s, humidity on the increase and scattered showers and thunderstorms are on the weather menu this weekend.

I'm looking upstream in the Dakota's where thunderstorms are firing and likely to move into northwest Minnesota this evening and across much of northern and central Minnesota in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Mid afternoon 2 mile resolution visible satellite image from NOAA centered on North Dakota.

Here's the model output from this morning's GFS run for expected rainfall from 1AM to 7AM Saturday. The blue color is the border of measurable rain.

The weather story out of Chanhassen NWS Office paints a nice summary of expectations for storms on Saturday.

No all day washouts are expected, but chances of getting a shower are about 50 percent. A boundary from Saturday's storms is expected to be the focus for more thunderstorms Saturday evening. It is very hard to define the location that is more likely to see strong storms Saturday night.

Looking ahead to Sunday, there remains a risk of severe storms in the heat and rather humid conditions across the central and southern sections of Minnesota and surrounding area.

This is the SPC's outlook for at least a 15 percent risk of severe storms Sunday and Sunday night.

The temperature reached 90 degrees at Twin Cities International Airport at 4PM. This is the seventh time this spring and summer season where the temperature has been 90 degrees or warmer. A normal summer (whatever that is) sees about 13 days where the mercury hits 90 or better in the Twin Cities.

A couple of widely scattered thundershowers extended from east of LeSeur to near Mapleton in southern Minnesota shortly after 4PM CDT.

CE