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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Sticky and stormy: Tropical air mass returns; occasional weekend thunderstorms

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Welcome to New Orleans.

A tropical air mass has oozed back into our region. It's like walking into a car wash out there in Minnesota. And the dew point climb has been remarkably steep. The dew point at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was a comfy 50 degrees at 1 p.m. Thursday. Friday afternoon, the dew point soared to 71 degrees at MSP. That's a tropical air mass.

8 3 71 dew
NOAA

Fuel for storms

The higher dew points are fuel for occasional thunderstorms this weekend. Scattered thunderstorms will fade as they move east across Minnesota Friday night. We may see another sunrise surprise Saturday morning, and scattered thunderstorms are likely through midday Saturday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NAM 3 km resolution model paints scattered storm coverage trends from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon.

8 3 nam 3
NOAA NAM 3 km resolution model via tropical tidbits.

Loose weather change

Our sunrise storms Friday produced mostly nickel- and dime-sized hail across the Twin Cities.

Mostly 80s

A hockey friend of mine just returned from a trip with a layover in Abu Dhabi. He described walking out of the aircraft into a curtain of heat and humidity that instantly fogged up his glasses.

It won't get that intensely sticky here, but we'll stay in the humid 80s for the foreseeable future.

8 3 w
NOAA via Weather Bell.

Heat still lurking

The upper-air maps continue to suggest a building heat dome into the Upper Midwest as we move deeper into August.

8 3 5003
NOAA

We don't take the day to day variations in the longer range output from NOAA's Global Forecast System model as gospel, but it usually does a good job with trends. The notion of adding 3 to 5 more 90 degree days in the next two to three weeks still seems reasonable.

8 3 162
NOAA GFS model temperature forecast for Minneapolis via Meteostar.

Stay tuned and stay cool.