Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

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We’re enjoying a beautiful late summer air mass over Minnesota now.

But changes are already brewing on the weather maps that will blow in a steamy tropical air mass capable of storms with torrential rainfall rates through the upcoming weekend.

Watch as NOAA’s GFS model pumps an oppressively tropical air mass north with dew points in the 70s by Thursday rising to near 80 degrees by Sunday evening. 

All forecast models generate occasional heavy storms for parts of Minnesota between Thursday night and Monday. Details of specific geography and timing will vary over the next few days. Here’s the European model solution.

It won’t rain all the time through the upcoming weekend. But when it does, torrential rainfall rates of 1 to 3 inches per hour are possible locally. That may produce flash flooding in local areas. And heavy storms may favor the nighttime and early morning hours when it’s hard to see flash flooding.

Be ready for possible flood watches and warnings across parts of Minnesota this upcoming weekend. With this setup, we can’t rule out locally heavy rainfall totals of more than 6 inches this weekend in some areas.

Late summer is climatologically ripe for heavy rainfall events in Minnesota. Steamy tropical air provides the fuel. Slow moving fronts can trigger heavy rain cells that crawl along slowly in weak steering current this time of year. 

So heavy rainfall events are not unusual in late summer here in Minnesota. Keep an eye out for possible flood watches and warnings this weekend.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

A steamy air mass will be capable of storms dumping torrential rains in parts of Minnesota through the upcoming weekend. 

European (ECMWF) model precipitation output

Tracking heavy rainfall potential through the upcoming weekend

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