Octoberish: Cool and breezy with PM showers

October arrives Saturday. The weather maps won't wait.

Another gusty northwest wind pumps across Minnesota today. Low pressure swirls south from Canada into the Great Lakes. Rain showers rake Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota this afternoon. It's a reminder the season formerly known as fall is back in the Upper Midwest.

Meteorologists call the rotating cold pool around low-pressure systems "cyclonic curvature in cold air."

Translation? An air mass increasingly favorable for spitting out scattered showers as the afternoon arrives and the ground warms with colder air aloft.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NAM 4 km resolution model does a nice job of capturing the essence of rotating shower bands sweeping due south this afternoon across the region.

Rainfall looks light for the Twin Cities area, maybe a few hundredths of an inch. Wisconsin gets more.

Kinder and gentler by Thursday

Our gusty winds will gradually lay down as we move through tomorrow and into Thursday. Low pressure dives due south through the Great Lakes. By Thursday quiet, sunny and dry high pressure noses south form Canada.

The inbound high-pressure cell brings more sun, less wind and milder temperatures as the week rolls on.

Tropical trouble brewing?

I've been keeping one eye on the tropical Atlantic the past few days. Invest 97 shows signs of getting better organized off the northern coast of South America.

The overnight infrared satellite loop shows Invest 97 gaining focus and rotation.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center gives the storm a 90 percent chance of becoming Matthew withing the next 48 hours.

Models favor a strengthening hurricane with increasing intensity over the next three to five days.

Early track forecast predict a sharp right northward turn over Cuba next week.

Some models have trended further west, that could bring Florida and the east coast into play later next week.

Stay tuned, this could become a storm the United States will need to watch.