Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

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.

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

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4 p.m. CDT forecast winds in knots. Image:National Weather Service

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.

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Image:NOAA/College of Dupage

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.

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Image:Midwest Regional Climate Center.

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!

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Today's fire danger from the Weather Prediction Center.

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

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

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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.

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

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