Scattered storms will weaken Monday evening; hot and humid later this week
As expected, the hot June sun activated an unstable atmosphere to fire up a scattering of showers and thunderstorms Monday afternoon from International Falls on the Canadian border to St. Cloud, the Twin Cities area and southeastern Minnesota.
Lightning reports identify some of the thunderstorms. Note that we seem to be along the route of a string of thunderstorm-makers from Alberta, Canada, to Wisconsin:
Those storms will continue to zip southeastward and clear out of Minnesota into Wisconsin this evening. Some storms could be a bit on the strong side, so a marginal risk of severe weather (darker green color) was posted for parts of east central and southern Minnesota and west central Wisconsin into Monday evening.
Thunderstorms for Tuesday
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A weak short-wave upper-level trough triggering storms in Montana and the Dakotas on Monday will slide across Minnesota on Tuesday. Scattered showers and thunderstorms are likely on Tuesday, mainly for about the northern half of our state. Some storms could be strong or severe in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.
More storms Wednesday night and Thursday
Yep, it's late June so look for more scattered storms, here and there around the state, Wednesday night and Thursday.
Hot and humid later this week
The weather pattern continues to look hot and quite muggy for later this week.
Heat will build on Thursday with Twin Cities' highs probably reaching the upper 80s.
Afternoon highs are likely to pump up to the mid 80s to low 90s on Friday. Much of the state could flirt with 90 on Saturday and Sunday.
Dew points, those measurements of how much moisture is in the air, are likely to reach into the low 70s in southern Minnesota by Thursday. Saturday could become a head-for-the-nearest-lake day with dew points possibly reaching mid to upper 70s for much of the state except the northeast.
The Twin Cities could make the low 90s both Saturday and Sunday. In fact, nighttime low temperatures might not dip below 70 degrees in the urban core those mornings. Such warm nights do not provide much opportunity to open windows and let homes and apartments cool during the dark hours.
That heat and moisture might trigger another scattering of thunderstorms over the weekend as we wrap up the month of June.
Relief early next week
It looks likely that the heat and humidity will be toned down a bit early next week. I will be looking forward to next Tuesday.