Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

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Our stormy summer storms much of southern Minnesota once again. 

We’re still cleaning up Here are some of the peak wind gusts in Minnesota last night. 

Thankfully, the storms did not produce widespread 

 wind gusts in the Twin Cities area last night.

The heaviest storms tracked south of Minnesota across eastern South Dakota and Iowa. It looks like the damaging wind gusts were long enough to reach derecho criteria in South Dakota and Iowa Monday night.

Here’s what’s needed for a storm to meet derecho criteria according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center:

Multiple wind gusts over 80 mph were recorded from eastern South Dakota through northern Iowa Monday night, and it appears the wind damage path tracked for more than 250 miles. 

The peak gust appears to be an incredible 99 mph in Sioux Center, Iowa. I’m seeing National Weather Service reports of at least 11 gusts between 75 and 99 mph along the storm’s path.

Another smudge of Canadian wildfire smoke is drifting south across Minnesota. Air quality is still good in the south, but deteriorating in the north Tuesday afternoon.

Our latest air quality alert covers about the northern half of Minnesota through Wednesday. 

The alert may be expanded to include southern Minnesota Wednesday. Here’s the latest forecast discussion from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency:

More rain and thunder are ahead for southern Minnesota late Tuesday night into Wednesday., but it looks like most of that system will stay south of the Twin Cities and away from the worst flooded areas like Morris in Stevens County. 

On the map below, NOAA’s NAM 3 km model shows the trend between midnight and noon Wednesday with showers and a few embedded thunderstorms favoring the Interstate 90 corridor in the south.

Temperatures will feel increasingly pleasant this week with highs in the 70s!

Enjoy our respite form heat, humidity, and storms.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

Monday's storms produced damaging wind gusts and power outages. 

Derecho slammed Iowa Monday night; drier forecast ahead

Go Deeper.

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