Dense fog and cold weather to start Thursday

Thursday begins foggy and unseasonably cold, then skies turn sunnier and most of Minnesota makes it into the 60s for the first time in a few days.

Thursday’s forecast

Much like the past couple days, Thursday is starting much colder than average, with most of the state in the 30s, and numerous locations, even as far south as central Minnesota, seeing temperatures below freezing. 

Because of this most of the state is under a frost advisory (blue) Thursday morning, with parts of northeastern Minnesota in a freeze warning (purple).

The one area that stayed slightly milder again and in the 40s overnight was southern and especially southeastern Minnesota, because of persistent cloud cover there.

There are also widespread areas dealing with dense fog Thursday morning, particularly in central and southern Minnesota, and including around the Twin Cities.  Fog will burn off by midmorning. 

The pattern responsible for the relentless cloud cover and scattered showers across southern Minnesota the past few days is finally clearing out. There are still a few light showers right along the Iowa border as of 7 a.m., which linger through the morning, but skies dry and more sun starts to break out by afternoon.  The rest of the state sees sunny skies all day after any fog lifts. 

The sunny skies combined with winds from the southwest warm the state back into the 60s for highs. 

This is still below average, but is much milder than most of the state has seen in the past couple days.

Temperatures continue to warm into next week.

That extended forecast will be updated around 9 a.m.

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on Minnesota Public Radio at 7:48 a.m. Monday through Friday morning.