Rainy weather 'washed the air,' improving air quality readings across Minnesota

NINA MOINI: I'm Nina Moini. You're listening to Minnesota Now, and as always, we thank you for sharing your time with us. Have you had enough of the rain yet? This wet week, of course, was needed to soothe drought in some parts of the state, but it was quite the whiplash from hot temperatures last week. So for more on all of that, keeping up with the weather is MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner. Thanks for being here, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, it's my pleasure, Nina.

NINA MOINI: So we had all this rainfall. Exactly how much did fall, and was it helpful? Was it helpful, maybe, to farmers this time of year?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, this was a significant rainfall, a proverbial million dollar rain for lots of farmers in central and southern Minnesota who've already planted crops. It was very dry sitting there, waiting for a little moisture, and boy, did we get it in spades, especially from the Twin Cities west into western Minnesota.

There's an area from the Twin Cities out to about Hutchinson and Clearwater, 2 to 3, maybe even 4 inches of rain. Hutchinson and Clearwater are over 3 inches now. Lester Prairie, 2.85. That's west of the Twin Cities. Howard Lake, 2.7. Mankato Area got 2.5 inches. And around the Twin Cities, anywhere from 2 to 2.5 to almost 3. Twin Cities Airport, 2.17. White Bear Lake, St. Paul, 2.5, so a real, real soaker.

And then you get down to Austin, Owatonna, Rochester. They had a little over 2 inches also. Less as you go north. Brainerd, Detroit Lakes had about an inch. Duluth, 0.39. So we didn't get a lot of rain up in those fire zones, and it kind of stops up around Bemidji where we got very light rain. So that was certainly good, though, central and southern Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, they've been dealing with those fires in northeast Minnesota. So how about drought, though, overall? Did it really mitigate it too much?

PAUL HUTTNER: I think it did. We're going to get a new drought monitor report tomorrow. Unfortunately, a lot of this rain won't make the cut off for that, which is 7:00 AM Tuesday, because most of it fell after. So we'll see that change, I think, in the drought monitor next week. But that area west of the Twin Cities got 1 to 4 inches, and it's abnormally dry to a drought zone in western Minnesota over to the South Dakota border.

So places like Montevideo, Granite Falls, I think they'll probably come out of drought. Less so north in that drought zone up around Bemidji and Red Lake, because they got little rain up there-- and as we mentioned, the fire zones. But there's one other benefit here I want to point out, Nina. This air, this rain, was so widespread, it actually washed the air in Minnesota to an extraordinary degree.

Air quality readings are excellent across Minnesota. In fact, I saw an air quality index of 1 in Minneapolis last night. I've never seen that before. It washes all those particles out of the air. So breathe deeply, Nina. It is a beautiful air mass out there, even though it's still a little gray today with a few showers.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, I think I did. My allergies have eased a little, so I believe you there. That's something good. So this weekend, a lot of people might have a three day weekend coming up. Of course, it's going to be Memorial Day on Monday. What is ahead for people?

PAUL HUTTNER: You know what? I'm going to give this weekend a 6 out of 10 weather stars, if you will, because it's going to be pretty decent. We'll start chilly tonight. We're 41 the Twin Cities. There are frost advisories out for all of northeast Minnesota from Hinckley north. They're used to that. They get a lot of frost even into June up north. Tomorrow, we'll see the sun at least part of the day, I think.

64 in the Twin Cities, and then mostly mid to upper 60s Friday, Saturday, Sunday, right through Memorial Day. Mostly sunny to partly cloudy at times, only about a 20% chance of a shower, and winds not too bad. So a cool weekend, but not bad. I think we'll see our fair share of sun, and you'll get most of your outdoor activities in this weekend.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Sometimes, that can be nice. Just nice and in the 60s. So for the rest of the summer outlook, though, is there a longer range forecast that you're looking at that talks about maybe temperatures, but rainfall as well?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, there are. There are tiers of these sort of cascading medium and long range forecasts. First, let's start with next week, because we're going to start in the 60s, but we'll hit 70s, it looks like, by Tuesday, Wednesday. And Nina, it looks like the models are saying we could hit 80 degrees around here later next week into that following weekend, the first days of June, especially in northern Minnesota, too, some 80s up north, so a big change there. And then the outlooks for the next few weeks and next month are calling for warmer than normal temperatures in our area.

And actually, if you extend that out even further into summer, the longer range outlooks are calling for a warmer than normal summer, so this could be very interesting to see if we actually have a steamy hot summer in Minnesota. Rainfall outlooks, generally equal chances to maybe slightly drier than normal, so we'll see how this shapes out. But hang on, summer's coming, and you'll feel it here, I think, as early as late next week.

NINA MOINI: Wow, that is interesting. We'll see how things flush out. What do you have going on for Climate Cast this week for us, Paul?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, they keep track of things like wildfire smoke and ozone, issue those air quality alerts. Now, they're going to add a new one. Blowing dust alerts coming to a Minnesota air quality forecast near you. We'll talk to Matt Carlson about why they're including that coming up on Climate Cast tomorrow.

NINA MOINI: Sounds good. Thanks so much, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.