Winter storm warnings in northern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Our beautiful summery August weather pattern continues through Thursday. So let's focus ahead a bit toward our next rain chances for Minnesota. 

Another hot front will nudge toward southwest Minnesota Thursday night into Friday. Highs Friday will; push toward 100 degrees again in South Dakota and Nebraska. Highs Friday afternoon will nudge 90 again in southwest Minnesota.  

But that steamy air mass will bump into relatively cooler air across Minnesota Thursday night and Friday morning. That’s a favorable environment for nocturnal thunderstorms to develop near the warm front Thursday night into early Friday.

NOAA’s GFS model grabs hold of the idea of a northwest to southeast oriented band of rain and thunder running from North Dakota through much of central Minnesota Thursday night into Friday morning. The loop below runs between 7 pm Thursday and 7 am Friday. 

If the timing is correct on these storms, Friday morning’s rush hour could be wet and thundery in the greater Twin Cities area.

The European model is among those that lay out rainfall across much of north-central Minnesota southward through the greater Twin Cities area. Most forecast models as of today suggest the most favored zone for an inch of rainfall lies across north-central Minnesota. 

Here’s the European model rainfall output through Friday. 

So another soaking looks likely for parts of Minnesota. But in typical summer fashion, rainfall totals may vary over just a few miles. Right now these look mostly like garden-variety thunderstorms, with little severe weather risk.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

The next rain chance for Minnesota arrives Thursday night.

Friday morning thunder ahead?

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox