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Weekend weather: Warm temps, breezy Saturday

Dry weather this weekend

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Wednesday at Central Park in Roseville
Courtesy of Deb Trenda

Our strange winter continues.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported a temperature of 51 degrees shortly after noon on Thursday; 50 is the average Twin Cities high temp on April 1.

Temperatures will retreat on Friday and then ramp up again by Saturday afternoon.

Weekend temps

Saturday morning low temperatures will be in the teens across much of Minnesota:

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Saturday morning forecast lows
National Weather Service

Parts of northeastern Minnesota will see Saturday lows in the single digits.

The average Twin Cities high temperature is 32 degrees on Feb. 24. The Twin Cities metro area and much of Minnesota will top out in the 40s Saturday afternoon:

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Saturday forecast highs
National Weather Service

There will be some 30s in northeastern Minnesota.

Saturday will be a bit breezy, with afternoon wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph:

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Saturday 3 p.m. forecast wind gusts
National Weather Service

Back to temperatures, Sunday highs will be in the 40s across much of Minnesota and western Wisconsin:

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Sunday forecast highs
National Weather Service

Far northern Minnesota will see Sunday highs in the 30s. A few spots in southwestern Minnesota could reach 50 degrees.

Dry weekend

It’s expected to be a dry weekend for most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale Forecast System model shows the potential precipitation pattern from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday:

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Simulated radar from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday
NOAA, via Tropicaltidbits.com

The solid black lines in the loop are isobars, which depict locations with a specific atmospheric pressure. When isobars are closer together the winds are stronger than when the isobars are more spread out. Winds will be stronger on Saturday than on Sunday.

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.