‘Unhealthy’ air quality expected in eastern Minnesota through Monday afternoon due to wildfire smoke

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Talk about some great napping weather. As advertised, the stratiform (slow and steady) rain stalled out, lingering well into the much cooler afternoon across southern Minnesota. We’re closing in on the largest 24-hours-in-total rainfall at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport in nearly a year! That’s not really an indicative stat for the rest of the state, but it shows how moderate things have been in recent months. The rains wraps up for most by dinner time, but might linger around the Twin Cities through 7:00 or a little longer Friday evening. 

Prior to the rain lightening up, we saw some really big totals! St. Peter, New Ulm, Redwood and Granite Falls, even the Twin Cities picked up a ton of rain. While we have not seen much flooding yet, I’ll be interested to see the lower Minnesota River Valley in the coming days.

Let’s head to the weekend forecast. We start off kind of damp, but it’s really drying out fast. Some that are awake before dawn Saturday will have some fog to contend with.

We expect storms late Monday night into Tuesday. This has long been blinking as the next sign of a cold front. Often that means severe weather this time of the year. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma just added parts of Minnesota to its Monday-Tuesday threat map. Here’s what they say (well, the non-geeky part) : “the potential will exist for organized storm modes capable of a more concentrated severe weather event from eastern ND into northwest MN.” 

Much the rest of the workweek is tranquil and warm next week. Highs are generally in the lower 80s, and so many may be able to save a few bucks on the A/C bill. That could be a big bill because of our multiple heat waves. On a broader scale, July of 2026 should go down as the warmest overall month ever recorded in American history. 

Following Tuesday morning’s powerful front we are looking at some more chances by next Saturday. This is more of a north-to-south mover. 

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Ben Cathey

Author

Rain wraps up Friday evening. The weekend begins foggy but wraps up with lots of sunshine and cooler weather than we’ve had recently. The next best chance of rain is early next Tuesday. 

Soaking rain but not a drought-killer

Go Deeper.

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