83 degrees: Twin Cities smashes high temperature record Monday

Welcome to July. On April 5.

A record warm air mass blew into Minnesota today. Southern Minnesota is basking in temperatures in the 80s, with 70s all the way north to Canada.

As of this post, the Twin Cities has reached 83 degrees. That smashes the record of 80 degrees set in 1991.

There will be many more records reported today across Minnesota.

Thunder tonight

A cold front tonight will shove out record heat away from Minnesota tomorrow. As it moves in, a broken line of thunderstorms is likely to form along the frontal boundary.

NOAA’s HRRR model paints scattered T-Storms along a Duluth-St. Cloud-Redwood Falls line around 10 pm tonight.

Slight severe risk

NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) paints a slight risk for severe storms across Minnesota tonight.

The situation is not particularly impressive, but a few storms could reach severe limits tonight. Primary threats include large hail (1” diamater) and wind gusts to 60 mph.

Here’s the technical discussion from SPC’s convective outlook.

...MN/WI... A weak surface cold front currently extends from the eastern Dakotas southward into central NE. This boundary will move slowly east/southward through the day into a gradually moistening/destabilizing air mass. Strong heating along this corridor, combined with relatively cool midlevel temperatures will yield an axis of MLCAPE around 1000 J/kg this afternoon/evening from central MN into central NE. A subtle shortwave trough over western SD will approach the region around/after dark, helping to strengthen low-level flow/convergence and lead to isolated thunderstorm development along the front. Current indications are that storms will be rather sparse, and CAM solutions indicate only a few storms will have robust up/downdrafts. Nevertheless, the strongest cells may pose a risk of locally damaging wind gusts and large hail.

Keep an eye and ear out for possible thunderstorms later this evening.