Mild Sunday temps; total lunar eclipse Sunday evening
Isolated shower chance today
Our average Twin Cities high temp is 69 degrees on May 15. Some spots in the Twin Cities metro area could top out in the mid 70s Sunday afternoon. Sunday highs in the 70s are forecast for roughly the southern half of Minnesota plus most of western Wisconsin, with 60s in northern Minnesota:
Sunday afternoon wind gusts will be over 20 mph in much of northern and central Minnesota plus northwestern Wisconsin:
Parts of northwestern Minnesota will have afternoon gusts over 30 mph. Forecast gusts are in knots, with 18 knots equal to 20.7 mph
Rain chance?
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Far southwestern Minnesota could see a passing shower this morning, and there is also a shower chance near the Canadian border. An isolated shower could pop up anywhere in Minnesota and western Wisconsin late in the afternoon.
Total lunar eclipse
Times on the eclipse image above are in Universal time; subtract 5 hours to get Central Daylight Time. For example: 03:29 a.m. Monday Universal time is 10:29 p.m. Sunday Central Daylight Time.
There will be a total lunar eclipse this Sunday evening. That means that the full moon will pass through the earth’s shadow.
According to NASA, this is why the moon will look coppery-red during the total eclipse phase:
The Moon moves into the inner part of Earth’s shadow, or the umbra. Some of the sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere reaches the Moon’s surface, lighting it dimly. Colors with shorter wavelengths ― the blues and violets ― scatter more easily than colors with longer wavelengths, like red and orange. Because these longer wavelengths make it through Earth’s atmosphere, and the shorter wavelengths have scattered away, the Moon appears orangish or reddish during a lunar eclipse. The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon appears.
According to timeanddate.com the timing of the eclipse looks like this in Minneapolis:
9:27 p.m. partial eclipse begins.
10:29 p.m. total eclipse begins (moon is coppery red)
11:53 p.m. total eclipse ends.
12:55 a.m. partial eclipse ends.
Times will be slightly different in other parts of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The linked location also has an excellent animation of how the eclipse will progress.
NASA also has several excellent eclipse animations. You can select Central Daylight Time or just subtract 5 hours from each image at the NASA site that uses Universal Time.
If you miss tonight’s lunar eclipse, when is the next one?
According to timeanddate.com the next total lunar eclipse visible in the Twin Cities is Nov. 7 into Nov. 8. After that date, the next total lunar eclipse visible here is in March of 2025.
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.