Northern Minnesota is under a new alert until Friday at 7 p.m.

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There’s some rain in our forecast Friday evening and for portions of the weekend. Parts of Minnesota could really use the rain.

 shows drought persisting in much of northern Minnesota and in a small section of far southeastern Minnesota:

The percentage of Minnesota in drought is 42.60 percent. The 42.60 percent includes 12.55 percent of Minnesota in severe drought (shaded orange) and 30.05 percent of Minnesota in moderate drought (beige).

The numbers under each color in the table refer to the percentage of Minnesota in that drought category plus the percentage of Minnesota in the higher drought categories to the right of that category.

The yellow-shaded area on the map shows 31.41 percent of Minnesota as abnormally dry but not currently in drought, according to U.S. Drought Monitor.

Portions of Wisconsin and much of Iowa are also in drought right now, with extreme drought (red) in a small portion of eastern Iowa:

We’ll see rain chances increase as we go through Friday, with some areas of thunderstorms later in the afternoon and into Friday night and early Saturday.

Far southern Minnesota will have a marginal risk of severe weather Friday evening into very early Saturday:

Marginal risk means that an isolated severe thunderstorm is possible.

Some areas will see some rain at times on Saturday, with a few embedded thunderstorms.  Another batch of showers and thunderstorms is expected Sunday and Sunday night.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale Forecast System model shows the potential precipitation pattern from 4 a.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Sunday:

The track of the low-pressure system on Sunday will be a big factor in which areas will see the strongest thunderstorms.

You can hear updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the MPR News 

The average Twin Cities high temperature is 62 degrees on April 27. Metro area highs are expected to reach the upper 60s this Saturday.

Saturday highs will range from 40s in far northern Minnesota to lower 70s in the far southeast:

Sunday highs are forecast to be in the 50s in the Twin Cities metro area, with 40s in roughly the northern half of Minnesota and 60s in parts of far southern Minnesota:

You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:39 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.  

Ron Trenda

Author

We’ll have a breezy weekend, with periods of rain and some thunderstorms at times. We have the weekend weather details plus a drought update.

Weekend weather: Warmest temps Saturday; best rain chance on Sunday

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