Summer reprise, and a warm week ahead

After a spell of autumn-like weather conditions last week, Mother Nature is delivering above-normal temperatures to close out the meteorological summer. Expect warm daytime temperatures and mild overnight readings.

The increase in relative humidity will be somewhat offset by a breeze this afternoon, as the mercury tops out in the 80s.

Wind gusts could top out around 30 mph this afternoon with average winds of 15 to 20 mph.

After we broke out in sunshine on Sunday, temperatures topped out in the 80s in most places, but a more persistent cloud cover in southeast Minnesota resulted in a maximum temperature of only 73 degrees at Rochester on Sunday.

Here's a nice animation of the dissipating low clouds from yesterday. Click on image to begin animation. The last frame is at 2:15 p.m.

Just a bit of a recap of last week as we end the month of August. There were some generous rains in far southern and far northern Minnesota on Friday. A swath of landscape though central Minnesota could use some precipitation going into September.

Recall the two major weather headlines on Friday: The western wildfires and the threat of Tropical Storm Erika. There was good weather news on both of these weather events as we moved through the weekend.

A forecast of "no threat" is still a forecast!

Remember the drama of the forecast track of Tropical Storm Erika last week? This forecast track and intensity was issued last Wednesday.

Well, here's what the National Hurricane Center has posted on Erika this morning!  She's gone, but Fred has been born.

Portions of Florida received  heavy rainfall over the weekend that perhaps can be attributed to the remnants of Erika.

We expect a run of very warm temperatures this week. Dew points are likely to remain relatively across southern Minnesota.

A more autum-like feel to the air arrives for Labor Day.