Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Drought conditions improving across northern Minnesota

Much of northern, SE Minnesota got 2-5 inches of rain over the past 30 days

Drought monitor update for Minnesota
Drought conditions in Minnesota last week
National Drought Mitigation Center

Our wetter spring across much of southeast and northeast Minnesota has eased drought in parts of our state.

Last week’s U.S. Drought Monitor for Minnesota shows drought coverage in Minnesota dropped to just 22 percent from 46 percent coverage last week. A new update will arrive Thursday morning.

The areas with the biggest drought improvement are in northern Minnesota between the Mississippi headwaters region and St. Louis County between Duluth and Ely. Severe drought drought around the Mississippi River headwaters and parts of Cass County is gone with just moderate drought in those areas.

And moderate drought has been knocked back to abnormally dry across St. Louis County.

Much of northern and southeastern Minnesota picked up between 2 and 5 inches of rain over the past 30 days.

Observed precipitation over the past 30 days
Observed precipitation over the past 30 days.
Midwest Regional Climate Center.

The forecast for the next one to two weeks looks very dry again across Minnesota. Forecast models like this European model output show very little rain over at least the next week:

European (ECMWF) model precipitation output
European model precipitation output over the next week
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, via Pivotal Weather

There are signs of some moisture later next week.

Stay tuned.