Showers and thunder at times; bright and dry Sunday
If you live in southern or central Minnesota, this probably isn't the best day to paint your deck or put out a bunch of items for a rummage sale.
Occasional showers are possible Friday and Friday night over southern and central Minnesota, with a few embedded thunderstorms also possible.
Northern Minnesota should stay mostly dry through early Friday evening, with scattered showers overnight Friday night.
Saturday rain
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Another batch of showers and thunderstorms is expected on Saturday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale Forecast System model shows the rainfall pattern over Minnesota on Saturday and Saturday evening:
The color chart to the right of the loop refers to the strength of the signal returning to the radar, not inches of rain.
Rain will probably fall on some areas where it looks dry on this run of the NAM model, but the main takeaway is that southern Minnesota is expected to see the most rain.
The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service has this estimate of rainfall totals from Friday through Saturday evening:
Thunderstorms will give localized higher amounts, but many spots in southern Minnesota will probably see rainfall totals of more than one inch by Saturday evening.
The Storm Prediction Center of the NWS shows a marginal risk of severe weather for parts of southeastern Minnesota on Saturday:
A marginal risk indicates that an isolated severe thunderstorm is possible.
Sunday looks dry over most of Minnesota, but some scattered showers will be possible over north-central and northeastern Minnesota Sunday afternoon.
Mild weekend temps
Our average high temp is 58 degrees tomorrow in the Twin Cities, but we'll shoot right by that and warm into the upper 60s.
Highs Saturday will be in the 60s over most of Minnesota:
On Easter Sunday, southern and central Minnesota will see highs in the 60s, with 50s over much of northern Minnesota and 40s to the northwest:
The Twin Cities metro area will have highs in the 50s most of next week.
Snowy April of 1983
On April 14, 1983 we saw 13.6 inches of fresh snow in the Twin Cities.
I'm sure that most people weren't amused to see that much snow in the middle of April. There were probably some very confused robins!
Our Twin Cities April snowfall total was 21.8 inches in 1983.
Our official snow total so far this April at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is one-half inch, but some spots in the northwestern part of the metro area saw between 1 and 2 inches of snow last Monday evening.
The highest April snowfall total in the Twin Cities since the year 2000 was 20.2 inches, in 2002:
Programming note
You can hear my live weather updates on Minnesota Public Radio at 7:49 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and at 7:35 and 9:35 a.m., plus 4:35 p.m., each Saturday and Sunday.