Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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Record warmth and gusty winds Wednesday will create potentially critical fire conditions in southern Minnesota. Highs will be well into the 80s south to just around 50 in far northwestern Minnesota. Showers develop Thursday northwest and spread east by Friday night.

High temperatures soar into the 80s across southern Minnesota Wednesday afternoon. Several locations, including the Twin Cities, Rochester, Eau Claire, Wis., and La Crosse, Wis., could break record highs. 

Northwestern Minnesota will continue to be quite a bit colder. You can see why when we take a look from space:

There continues to be deep snow pack in North Dakota and far northwestern Minnesota. Without forests like in northeast Minnesota, the large area of white reflects back much of the incoming sun. 

We call this difference in color of surfaces and how they absorb or reflect sunlight albedo. You can see the big difference in temperatures Tuesday afternoon:

The warmth Wednesday will be accompanies by gusty winds once again. Wind gusts could top 30-40 mph in southern Minnesota.

Relative humidity will drop to nearly just 20 percent by afternoon as well across southern Minnesota.

That combination of high winds and low humidity along with all the dead vegetation from a long winter increases the fire danger. Red flag warnings are posted for southern Minnesota counties through Wednesday evening.

Evidence of climate change in early April heat?

The early April heat wave prompts the obvious question: Is this climate change? The answer is complicated. 

While most months are rapidly warming, especially in winter and early summer, February and April are affected by a potential increase in polar vortex disruptions that may be an unintended consequence of human-caused climate change.

April is a volatile month for temperatures, especially in recent years. Consider how cold last April was but the April before saw mid-80s in the first week of the month. 

April is one of only a couple months where the temperature trends over the past century are almost flat.

When we look at the warmest temperature of each April, however, we see a more pronounced trend. While the April average temperature in the Twin Cities has only increased 1.2 degrees since 1873, the warmest temperature has increased 4.6 degrees.

We can also take a look at the number of 80s in April. While there’s only subtly more now compared to historically, the number of 80s coming earlier, before April 15, is increasing by two to three times!

Showers develop Thursday northwest, spread east this weekend

The next storm system will move slowly. Scattered showers will develop in northwestern Minnesota Thursday and slowly progress east into Friday. Showers and some thunder won’t reach the Twin Cities and southeastern Minnesota until late Friday evening into Saturday.

There is the possibility of some snow, especially north as colder air works into the system. We’ll also see a few days of colder temperatures into early next week.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Sven Sundgaard

Author

Record warmth and gusty winds Wednesday will create potentially critical fire conditions in southern Minnesota. Highs will be well into the 80s south to just around 50 in far northwestern Minnesota. Showers develop Thursday northwest and spread east by Friday night.


Record warmth and gusty winds Wednesday will create potentially critical fire conditions in southern Minnesota. Highs will be well into the 80s south to just around 50 in far northwest Minnesota. Showers develop Thursday northwest and spread east by Friday night.



Record warmth, red flag warnings south; showers Thursday into the weekend

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