Weekend forecast: Temps rebound slightly; Sunday p.m. mix in far northern Minn.?

You don’t need me to tell you that this week has been cool, with lots of cloud cover. We’ve also seen periods of rain and snow. Thankfully, our weather improves this weekend.

Our average Twin Cities high temperature is 59 degrees on April 17. Much of the metro area will top out in the mid 50s this weekend. Most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin will have Saturday highs in the 50s, with a few 40s in parts of far northern Minnesota:

Saturday will be a bit breezy by afternoon, with gusts in the 15-20 mph in many areas:

Plotted gusts are in knots, with 14 knots equal to about 16 mph.

Back to temperatures, Sunday highs will be mainly in the 50s, with 40s in northwestern Minnesota and parts of north-central Minnesota:

Winds will be lighter on Sunday.

Sunday will have more minutes of sunshine than Saturday, except in far northern Minnesota.

Precipitation chances favor the far north

The daylight hours of Saturday and Sunday look dry across most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. However, a few rain/snow showers could move into far northern Minnesota Sunday afternoon.

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

The rain/snow mix is expected to spread southward Sunday evening and overnight Sunday night.

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

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.