Numerous showers for Sunday into Monday
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Saturday has been a gorgeous summer day for just about all of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. There have been small, isolated showers popping up in northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. These showers have been tracking toward the southeast. They will not be severe.
Rainy system arrives Sunday
A weather system likely to bring widespread rain for much of Minnesota and Wisconsin will push into Minnesota on Sunday. Rain is likely to begin in southwestern Minnesota Saturday night, after midnight. Rain will then spread eastward across southern Minnesota Sunday morning.
Forecast models are in disagreement as to whether rain will reach the Twin Cities Sunday morning. Instead, it could track a bit south of the metro area and not expand north to the Twin Cities until Sunday afternoon.
Showers and possibly isolated thunderstorms will swirl over mainly central and southern Minnesota and into Wisconsin as Sunday continues and then Sunday night. Rain should be much spottier across northern Minnesota where some locations might stay dry.
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A marginal risk (level 1 of 5) of severe weather has been issued to include southwestern Minnesota for Sunday and Sunday night.
Rain moves out on Monday
Rain should taper from the northwest Sunday night and Monday morning and finally end around the Twin Cities area Monday morning.
Cooler temperatures coming
Sunday will definitely be a cooler day. High temperatures should range from the mid 60s where the rain arrives early to the low 70s where it arrives later or not at all.
Monday is likely to be a touch warmer with most of the state reaching the 70s.
Warmer Tuesday and especially Wednesday
Another chance of rain mid-week
A weaker weather system might bring scattered showers during the middle of the week. That might be Wednesday night, but timing looks fuzzy for this unimpressive system.
Perseid meteor shower
These showers are of the meteor (space rock) type, not the water type.
The Perseid meteor shower occurs every August when Earth passes through a field of debris shed by comet Swift-Tuttle over the centuries. Swift-Tuttle is a large comet approximately sixteen miles wide that orbits the sun over a period of 133 years.
It passes near the sun, which causes pieces of ice and rock to be shed, then takes a long loop out past the orbit of Neptune before turning back toward the sun.
The comet itself is not visible this year as it is well out in the solar system. But we are passing through its debris field. The small rocky bits strike Earth’s upper atmosphere at great speed and burn up as they streak by brightly high overhead.
Saturday night into Sunday morning, Aug. 12-13, Earth will pass through the densest part of the debris and give sky watchers the best opportunities to spot what we used to call “shooting stars.”
When to view
Earth rotates on its axis toward the debris field overnight. The best times to spot meteors is after midnight. The number of meteors tends to increase later in the night.
Look for as dark a location as possible. And give your eyes plenty of time to adjust to the dark. Also, and this might be a tough one, no glowing cell phone screen to desensitize your eyes from seeing in the dark.
