Decreasing clouds; much warmer heading into the weekend

Lingering clouds Thursday, still cool

cloud cov
Cloud cover early Thursday morning
NOAA via pivotal weather

Clouds will linger much of Thursday in eastern Minnesota while northwest Minnesota sees more sun. Sunshine will prevail statewide Friday with much warmer temperatures.

Lingering clouds much of Thursday in the east

Much of eastern Minnesota, especially in the southeast and western Wisconsin, got quite the soaking Wednesday. Parts of southeast Minnesota saw 1 to 1.5 inches of rainfall from Rochester to Winona to Eau Claire, Wis.

prec 2
Estimated precipitation from Wednesday
NOAA via pivotal weather

The rains are done but lingering low level moisture will keep much of eastern and especially southeastern Minnesota locked into the clouds for much of Thursday.

clouds THU
Stubborn low clouds will linger much of Thursday in the east with sunshine west
College of DuPage Weather

High temperatures across the state will reflect the ‘sun divide.’ Northwest Minnesota will see the warmest temperatures, in the low 70s, while southeast Minnesota remains cooler.

THU highs PM
Forecast high temperatures Thursday
National Weather Service

Brighter Friday and much warmer ahead

We’ll have abundant sunshine statewide on Friday and a jump up in temperatures.

FRI highs PM
Forecast high temperatures Friday
National Weather Service

The warming trend continues into the weekend with widespread 70s and 80s. We do have a risk of some thunderstorm chances developing too. A slow-moving to nearly stalled low pressure area and frontal boundary will be the focus for possible storms (even some strong ones) Sunday and Memorial Day.

wknd EUR SLP
An area of low pressure and a frontal boundary will nearly stall across western Minnesota by Sunday
NOAA via pivotal weather

Beyond that, we may be flirting with 90 by Memorial Day or Tuesday next week.

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