Refreshing Canadian air has arrived

Severe thunderstorms dropped some serious hail on the northern half of Minnesota Sunday night. There also were reports of tornado touchdowns near Staples and southeast of Grand Rapids.

Canadian relief

Those storms are long gone this morning. Fresh, dry Canadian air behind a cold front has flushed yesterday's heat and humidity out of the state. Severe storms are most likely today in a long swath from Missouri to upstate New York.

Dew points have fallen all the way to the upper 40s and low 50s. High temperatures ranging from the low 70s to the low 80s coupled with low humidity will treat us to a lovely day today. The only showers this morning are a few light stray showers in west central Minnesota in the Ortonville-Morris area. Winds will be gusty from the northwest into early evening.

Summer solstice

Although meteorological summer runs from June 1 until August 31, the summer solstice is today, and a fine one it will be. The North Pole will have its maximum tilt toward the sun at 5:34 p.m. today. In the Twin Cities that translates to 15 hours and 37 minutes of daylight. Warroad, Minn., near the Canadian border, will be treated to 16 hours and 19 minutes of daylight. And anyone north of the Arctic Circle will get a full 24 hours of sunshine.

Tomorrow will be another quiet day but maybe a couple degrees warmer.

Then the chance of thunderstorms will return on Wednesday. In addition, warm fronts often produce widespread rain.

Further down the week, there is a decent chance of showers thunderstorms Friday night and Saturday.

More heat out west

The Southwest continues to bake and wildfires continue to burn.

Phoenix had a record 118 degrees yesterday while Yuma, Ariz., reached a very toasty 120. That heat wave not only will continue but will expand toward the Pacific Northwest over the next two weeks. Here is the 8 to 14 day temperature outlook. Note how much of the West has a high probability of being warmer than normal during that period.