Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Coming up for air, summery weekend ahead

After a very wet week, we come up for air (and sunshine) across Minnesota as we head for the weekend.

Wednesday's deluge is just the latest super-sized rainfall event in Minnesota. The epicenter for this one runs along Minnesota River communities north to Willmar.

The heavier rainfall band runs northeast through Brainerd and Grand Rapids to Ely.

Thousand-year rain?

Rainfall recurrence interval. That's your shiny new weather term for the day. The 9.45" of rain in 24 hours in Redwood Falls looks like a 500 to 1,000 year rainfall event. Most of that fell in just a few hours. Here's the chart for Redwood Falls from NOAA's ATLAS-14 data.

Back to the 80s

Summer finally returns this weekend. We should push 80-plus in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota this weekend. 70s up north. Cooler by the Lake.

8 17 wx
NOAA via Weather Bell

Cool August

So far August is running about 3 degrees cooler than at MSP Airport. After a wet Monday next week looks spectacular with sunny dry days in the 70s across most of Minnesota to near 80 in the Twin Cities.  But overall that's still a few degrees cooler than average.

8 17 610temp.new
NOAA

Eclipse clouds?

I still see a weather system moving through the Upper Midwest on Monday. We may get some sunny peeks, but it still looks like we'l see considerable cloud cover around midday Monday. I'm just the messenger.