Two solid chances of rain with cool trend

The big local weather story today is the continued expansion of the drought throughout Minnesota. The Twin Cities now own their worst drought in about three years. You've got to go several feet underground to hit much in the way of any moisture. So, when's the rain getting here?

After all, far southern Minnesota has been getting clipped by day after day of storms, including a great soaking rain for Austin, Rochester, over to La Crescent. Plus, it looked stormy across much of southern Minnesota earlier Thursday - as expected. But, also as anticipated, the rain stayed just north of the Cities. Thursday does begin a minor cooling trend that lasts quite a while, so we may not lose as much water to evapotranspiration (corn sweat!) in the upcoming days. Friday has a minor chance of rain, but mostly along the northwestern end of the state, and mostly by evening.

Saturday is our next best chance for a 'talker' rain. That means, as you're making coffee or tea at the office, you tell the random coworker 'hey, did you hear we might get some rain on Saturday?' What makes this unique is that showers are mostly light - though there is some more 'precipitable water' to tap into for the Boundary Waters. Meanwhile, just to our south, central Iowa is going to get hammered yet again by big rains. They're the bullseye for the USA in the coming days! For us on Saturday, we may get a few tenths of an inch, but it won't affect everyone and this is no drought buster.

The weekend brings cooler weather. For Saturday in particular, we could have highs only in the upper 70s all across the state, especially if the clouds don't budge until the later afternoon. Sunday looks like a really good day to catch up on the chores and yardwork (looking at you, Ben, get the weeding done!). Temperatures are more pleasant for spending an extended time outdoors, while the UV index is moderate-to-high. The same goes for Monday until Monday night.

Tuesday brings what I think is the best shot for a real soaking rain throughout the next week. We're hoping that Iowa shares the wealth of rains and that extends north. Ironically, the corn sweat from all the recent Iowa rains could actually be driven north and help fuel some rain in that Tuesday time frame!

The average temperature trend continues well into next week, even though a new heat wave is bubbling up across Texas and the Deep South. Given that we've been so warm lately, it might feel like we're 'average' but actually, not so much. We are typically in the lower 80s this time of year. There's almost certainly some more 90s to be dug up before the year is over.

Over the last 30 years in the Twin Cities, the normal last 90 degree day was August 29. Last year we had the 90s until early October! Just because I was digging through the archives, the normal last 80 is October 3rd, the normal last 70 is October 23rd, the normal last 60 is November 7th, and the normal last 50 is November 27th. In Minnesota, things happen fast. In less than a two month time-frame, we go through some tremendous temperature changes.