Gorgeous weekend weather; late Sunday rain chance western Minnesota

If you like sunshine, low humidity and highs in the 70s you’ll like our Saturday weather. Parts of northeastern Minnesota will have some patches of clouds.

Saturday highs will be in the 70s in most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin, with a few upper 60s in parts of northeastern Minnesota.

Similar highs are on tap for Sunday, and a few spots in southwestern Minnesota might even touch 80:

The Sunday forecast high of 78 degrees in the Twin Cities is also our average high on August 30.

Sunday afternoon dew points will be in the comfortable 50s:

Sunday PM rain chances

The daylight hours of Sunday look dry in most areas. Parts of northwestern and west-central Minnesota could see some showers and t-storms late Sunday afternoon, with that activity spreading southward and eastward Sunday evening and Sunday night. In the Twin Cities metro area, our Sunday rain chance will probably hold off until after sunset.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential rain pattern Sunday afternoon through Sunday night:

You can hear updated weather information on the MPR network, and you’ll see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

July snow up north?

On my weather chat with John Wanamaker this morning on Minnesota Public Radio, we talked about whether it has ever snowed in July or August in Minnesota. I mentioned that Pete Boulay of the Minnesota State Climatology Office had an interesting post about the legend of July snow in northern Minnesota. According to Boulay:

Of all the questions that the State Climatology office receives, this is one of the strangest. Every six months or so a phone call, an e-mail or letter asks about whether or not it has snowed in Northern Minnesota during the month of July. Most of the time the caller/writer is referencing an event they either witnessed or heard about. The cities vary, sometimes as far south as Brainerd but Ely seems to be a perennial favorite.

The strangest part is the date. It is always snowing on the 4th of July in the town they mention. Oddly few can remember what year it was except to usually narrow it down within a decade or so. Also, much like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, there aren't any cameras handy to record such a rarity. Requests of a scrap of newspaper that recorded the momentous event have gone unfulfilled. So many unconfirmed reports of July 4th snows have arrived at the office over the years one would think it is a winter wonderland during the "rockets red glare" north of I-94. We often wonder if the people are mistaking Memorial Weekend for the 4th of July.

Upon receiving a new report of July snow, we investigate each one to see if it is plausible. The year is approximated and a search through the paper copies of the nearest National Weather Service Cooperative Station is performed. The temperatures found are almost universally too mild to support snow. The few cases where snowflakes could be plausible, the conditions associated with the date were under a large dome of high pressure with clear skies.

We're sure these people saw snowflakes according to the vivid descriptions, usually while sitting watching a parade in a place like Ely. Others also have commented on a July 4th snowfall in the Ely area. Few have been able to pinpoint a year. We've sifted through years of data gathered by National Weather Service observers in the area and have never been a recorded observation of snowfall. While it is possible that it has snowed somewhere in northeast Minnesota sometime in July we have not as of yet found an official record of it. Bruce Watson, a now-deceased consulting meteorologist whose knowledge of Minnesota's climate was unsurpassed, took a tougher stance on the subject. In 1997, he wrote: "June has brought measurable snow in the Arrowhead more than once. Snow probably has occurred there in very late August, although we have never found an official record of such. July snow would be an extremely rare event, and has not likely occurred in the last 300 years.

Pete Boulay ends his post with this:

As it stands right now the latest recorded measurable snow in Minnesota remains at 1.5 inches at Mizpah in Koochiching County on June 4, 1935 and the earliest documented snow in Minnesota is a trace that fell at the Duluth Airport on August 31, 1949.

In case you’re wondering, the earliest trace of snow in Twin Cities weather records occurred on Sept 15. 1916. The earliest measureable snow in the Twin Cities was four-tenths of an inch on Sept 24, 1985.  

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.