Windy Sunday, with late day thunderstorm chances

This is a great time of year, with many trees showing vibrant fall colors. A Saturday trip across parts of St. Paul and Minneapolis also revealed some trees that were still green and a few trees that had dropped their colorful leaves to the ground.

Sunday leaf-peeping will be good across much of southern Minnesota and parts of central Minnesota, with spottier fall colors to the north. Here’s the latest fall color report from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:

Keep in mind that all deciduous trees are included in the fall color report, not just maples.

The Wisconsin fall color report can be found here.

Windy and a bit warmer on Sunday

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport tallied a Saturday high temperature of 66 degrees. That was 5 degrees warmer than our average Oct. 10 high temp.

Some spots in the Twin Cities metro area may creep slightly above 70 degrees Sunday afternoon. Highs could range from the upper 50s in northeastern Minnesota to near 80 in far southwestern Minnesota:

Winds pick up on Sunday, with gusts of 20-30 mph possible in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, and gusts over 35 mph in parts of western Minnesota:

Plotted values are in knots, with 22 knots equal to around 25 mph and 33 knots equal to around 38 mph.

I should mention that much higher gusts are possible near any thunderstorms that develop late Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening.

Sunday p.m. rain and thunder chances

Areas of rain with embedded thunderstorms are expected to develop in parts of western Minnesota by late Sunday afternoon. The rain/embedded t-storms will spread eastward into eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin as we go through Sunday evening and Sunday night.

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

The best chance of rain/thunder in the Twin Cities metro area will be from Sunday evening into the overnight hours of Sunday night. We could end up with around one inch of much-needed rainfall.

The NWS Storm Prediction Center shows a slight risk of severe weather late Sunday afternoon and Sunday night for much of central and southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro area. Slight risk means that scattered severe t-storms are possible. SPC shows a marginal risk severe weather Sunday evening/Sunday night in northern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, which means that an isolated severe thunderstorm is possible.

Here’s the NWS Twin Cities discussion of the Sunday afternoon/Sunday night severe weather potential, with the slight-risk area shaded yellow:

It still looks like any thunderstorms/severe weather chance in the Twin Cities metro area will hold off until after sunset on Sunday.

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

The coming week

After some lingering early morning rain on Monday, it’s expected to be mainly dry in the metro area Tuesday through Friday.

Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the lower 60s Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then it gets colder. We could see highs in the lower 50s Thursday and around 50 on Friday.

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:39 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.