Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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Parts of Minnesota saw strong thunderstorms and heavy rain Thursday night, and another batch of strong to severe thunderstorms is expected to spread across Minnesota Friday night into early Saturday.

This is an excerpt from the Minnesota State Climatology Office 

 about the Thursday night downpours in central Minnesota:

Here’s additional info on the heavy rain that fell Thursday night:

With saturated soils in central Minnesota, it wouldn’t take much additional rain to cause new flooding. There is a flood watch for several central Minnesota counties from 10 p.m. this Friday to 8 a.m. Saturday:

Friday night/early Saturday severe weather outlook

A cold front will be moving out of the Dakotas Friday night, and it’ll ignite areas of thunderstorms that will spread eastward Friday evening and overnight, lingering in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin into early Saturday morning. Some severe weather is expected, with the highest chances of severe weather in the west.

A severe thunderstorm watch continues until 9 p.m. this Friday in much of North Dakota plus northwestern Minnesota:

I expect additional severe weather watches to be issued by the NWS 

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The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for much of western, central and northern Minnesota until 3 a.m. Saturday:

Here are details of the severe thunderstorm watch:

Additional severe weather watches may be issued by the NWS Storm Prediction Center Friday night.

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The Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service shows an enhanced risk of severe weather Friday evening and through Friday night (which ends at 7 a.m. Saturday) in northwestern and west-central Minnesota, with a slight risk (shaded yellow) of severe weather from north-central through southwestern Minnesota:

The threat assessment and the details on what to expect and what to do are provided by the Twin Cities office of the NWS.

Enhanced risk means that numerous severe thunderstorms are possible, slight risk means that scattered severe thunderstorms are possible:

Most of the Twin Cities metro area, plus the remainder of eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, have a marginal risk of severe weather Friday night into early Saturday; which means that an isolated severe thunderstorm is possible. Our best chance of thunderstorms in the metro area arrives sometime after midnight Friday night, with thunderstorm chances lingering into early Saturday morning.

You can hear updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the Minnesota Public Radio News 

, and you can see updated weather info on the MPR News 

. It’s good to have a NOAA weather radio or a trusted weather alert app available to wake you up when warnings are issued for your area while you are asleep.

Saturday highs will be in the lower 80s in the Twin Cities plus southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, with 70s elsewhere:

Saturday afternoon dew points will be in the sticky 60s southeast, with more comfortable 50s to the northwest:

Sunday highs will be in the 60s in roughly the northern third of Minnesota, with 70s elsewhere:

Sunday dew points will be in the very comfortable 40s:

Back to forecast high temps, Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the lower 80s Monday and Tuesday, followed by upper 80s Wednesday and Thursday and then lower 80s on Friday.

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.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Ron Trenda

Author

We’ll start the weekend with a few thunderstorms. Severe weather is possible in some areas Friday night into early Saturday. We have details of that, plus a flood watch in central Minnesota and cooler weekend temps.

Thunderstorms at times overnight and early Sat.; severe weather is possible

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