Dry Memorial Day weekend in most areas, Rain chance Monday in western Minnesota

It’s nice to talk about beautiful weather on a holiday weekend.

We’ll have a sun-splashed Saturday and Sunday in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A ridge of high pressure aloft and a surface high-pressure system to our east will give us dry weather today and Sunday.

The upper-level ridging breaks down a bit on Monday and the surface high-pressure system will shift slightly eastward. Those events will allow a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms to enter western Minnesota on Memorial Day.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the surface pressure pattern and the potential rain pattern from 6 p.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Monday:

On Tuesday, the chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms will spread across the remainder of Minnesota and into Wisconsin, and then unsettled weather will linger through the remainder of the week.

You can find updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the MPR News network. 

Temperature trends

The average May 27 Twin Cities high temperature is 73 degrees. Metro area highs are expected to be in the lower 80s today. Much of Minnesota will have Saturday highs in the lower 80s, with mainly 70s in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. Portions of northwestern Minnesota will have Saturday afternoon highs in the mid to upper 80s.

Sunday highs will be in the 80s in most areas, with 70s near Lake Superior:

Parts of far western Minnesota will have Sunday highs in the upper 80s.

Memorial Day highs range from upper 80s in western Minnesota to mid 80s in much of eastern Minnesota and lower 80s in western Wisconsin:

Areas near Lake Superior will see highs in the 70s.

Twin Cities metro area highs will be in the mid 80s on Memorial Day, followed by upper 80s Tuesday through Friday. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few spots in the metro area touch 90 degrees Thursday afternoon.

There isn’t any cold weather in sight. The NWS Climate Prediction Center shows a tendency for above-normal temps in Minnesota and western wisconsin next weekend and into the start of the following week:

Fire weather update

Low relative humidity levels today will combine with warm temps and breezy conditions to create near-critical fire weather conditions in some areas.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources shows a high to very high fire danger in Minnesota today:

A portion of Lake of the Woods County and northwestern Koochiching County have extreme fire weather conditions.

Here are details of each fire danger category used by the Minnesota DNR:

Here’s a map of burning restrictions posted by the Minnesota DNR on Saturday:

Note that campfires are allowed in all areas on the map, the permit requirements are for open burning.

The Minnesota DNR posts fire danger and burning restriction updates here.

Weather nugget

The Minnesota State Climatology Office looked at Memorial Day weather records for the period 1971 through 2020. They found that the warmest Twin Cities high temperature on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was 94 degrees, set in 2018.

That record still holds if you include the 2021 and 2022 Memorial Day weekend temperatures.

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. each Saturday and Sunday.