Weekend weather: Chance of showers; coolest temps Sunday

I’ll get into the weekend forecast after a quick look at our worsening drought conditions.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor report shows 85.07 percent of Minnesota in drought:

That’s about 9.6 percent more of Minnesota in drought than one week ago.

For the first time this year, there are some areas of exceptional drought (shaded dark red). One of those areas is from eastern Aitkin County into Carlton County and another area of exceptional drought is from eastern Freeborn County into portions of Mower County.

Medium-red shaded areas are in extreme drought. Orange-shaded areas (including most of the Twin Cities metro area) are in severe drought.

In the table that’s included with the map, the box under each color includes stats for that drought category plus stats for areas with worse drought conditions. For instance, the box under orange includes the percentage of Minnesota that is in severe drought plus the percentages for areas in extreme and exceptional drought.

I broke down the percentages of Minnesota for each drought category:

•    1.4 percent in exceptional drought

•     14.7 percent in extreme drought

•     38.67 percent in severe drought

•     30.3 percent in moderate drought

•     14.85 percent abnormally dry (but not in drought)

The data cutoff for this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor map was 7 a.m. Tuesday, so it does not includes the rain that hit parts of Minnesota Tuesday afternoon and evening. That rain affected mainly northern Minnesota:

Weekend rain chances

Some patchy rain is expected to spread across Minnesota on Saturday and continue into Saturday evening. There could be some embedded thunderstorms Saturday afternoon and evening.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential rain pattern from 5 a.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Saturday:

The Twin Cities metro area could see scattered showers and an isolated thunderstorm anytime from Saturday afternoon into Saturday evening. A few lingering scattered showers are possible on Sunday.

You can hear updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the MPR News network. Also check out the MPR News display of National Weather Service radar.

Weekend temps

The average Twin Cities high temperature is 76 degrees on Sept. 9. Metro area highs will be close to 80 degrees on Saturday.

Much of Minnesota will have Saturday highs in the 70s:

Cook County in northeastern Minnesota could see some upper 60s.

Sunday highs will be mainly in the lower 70s, with some 60s in far northern Minnesota:

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.