Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Cooler air blast coming; drought conditions persist

Rain showers will come with the cooler air

850 T  anom
Forecast temperature anomalies map (departure from normal) Thursday into Friday shows below-normal temperatures coming.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, via Pivotal Weather

Thursday will be windy with sunshine in southern Minnesota while northern Minnesota sees scattered showers develop. Cooler air moves in for Friday, touching off more showers.

The latest drought conditions report shows 82 percent of Minnesota is still in at least moderate drought, down only slightly from the prior week.

Thursday: Sun south, clouds and showers north

Instability driven showers will develop across northern and central Minnesota midday into the afternoon Thursday. Most of southern Minnesota will remain dry.

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Forecast precipitation 9 a.m. Thurday through 10 p.m.
NOAA, via Pivotal Weather

Southern Minnesota should also see more sunshine than northern Minnesota.

1p clouds
The forecast cloud cover map for midday Thursday shows it cloudier north and brighter south.
National Weather Service

Highs Thursday will actually be near normal, in the low to mid-60s in southern Minnesota and in the 50s in northern Minnesota.

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Forecast highs Thursday
National Weather Service

Cooler air Friday and Saturday with showers

Our next blast of cooler air will be settling in for Friday and Saturday. That will drop high temperatures into the low 50s south both days and 40s north.

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Forecast highs Friday
National Weather Service

That chilly air will destabilize the atmosphere and create more clouds and some scattered rain showers along with yet another windy day Friday.

fri prec 9a
Forecast precipitation 1 a.m. through 10 p.m. Friday
NOAA, via Pivotal Weather

Brighter skies gradually appear through the weekend with more seasonably cool highs, mostly in the 50s to near 60 degrees.

Little change in the latest drought monitor

The latest drought monitor shows that 82 percent of Minnesota is still in at least moderate drought, down only very slightly from 83 percent a week ago. There are still pockets of extreme drought (red) in several spots.

drought 10-05
Drought monitor for Oct. 5
National Drought Mitigation Center

Comparing last week to this week, we can see very little change. Sometimes, with the ongoing drought, no news is good news.

drought compar e10-05
Comparison this week's and last week's drought monitor: largely unchanged
National Drought Mitigation Center

Most of the rain over the past seven days was across central Minnesota and somewhat localized. At this time of the year we need just over one-half inch of rain per week to keep the rainfall deficit from growing.

7day precip
Rainfall over the past seven days
WeatherBELL Analytics

The rainfall deficit since June 1 still is just shy of 7 inches at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and just under 9 inches in Rochester.