A warm and breezy Saturday

Our Twin Cities record high temp for Oct. 22 is 81 degrees, set in 1992. We’re expecting metro area highs in the upper 70s this afternoon, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see an 80 somewhere in the metro area. Our average Twin Cities high is 55 degrees this time of year.

Saturday temps and winds

Parts of southwestern and south-central Minnesota will have highs in the lower 80s Saturday afternoon, with mainly 70s across the remainder of southern Minnesota plus central Minnesota and western Wisconsin:

Far northern Minnesota will see highs in the 60s and upper 50s.

Saturday afternoon wind gusts will be in the 18 to 24 mph range in many locations:

Forecast wind gusts are in knots, with 18 knots equal to 20.7 mph.

Dry day in most areas

There have been some scattered showers in far northwestern Minnesota this morning, but those showers should move off into Canada by Saturday afternoon. A rain-free afternoon and evening is expected in most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh forecast model shows the potential rain pattern from noon Saturday to 11 p.m. Saturday:

We have updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the Minnesota Public Radio News network, and on the MPR News live weather blog.

Fall color report

Many trees have dropped a lot of their leaves, but there are still pockets of good fall color in portions of southern and central Minnesota.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources fall color report for Minnesota State Parks and Trails looks like this:

The Wisconsin fall color report can be found here.

Update

A new Updraft will be posted around 10:20 a.m. today. It will include a look at Sunday and the week ahead.

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. Saturday and Sunday.