Lingering shower chance Thursday with warmer weekend weather ahead

We have lingering clouds and the chance of spotty showers Thursday. High pressure returns Friday, bringing sunshine. Warmer temperatures build in for the weekend.

Shower chances Thursday; brighter, warmer Friday

While not a wet day Thursday, we’ll still have the lingering chance of some isolated to spotty showers. We’ll also see peeks of sunshine within the lingering cloud cover across the region.

Highs Thursday afternoon will be a little cooler, mostly in the 50s and 40s which is near or just below normal for the date. 

Some sunshine returns for Friday with partly cloudy skies as high pressure builds back in and means warmer temperatures. Highs will be in the 60s west to 50s and 40s north and northeast. 

Warmer temperatures build in for the weekend with 60s becoming more widespread Saturday and Sunday. Southern Minnesota will see highs in the 70s by Sunday. 

The next chance at precipitation will develop in northwestern Minnesota starting late Saturday and expanding to the east and southeast Sunday into Monday. Northern Minnesota could again see some snowfall Sunday night into Monday.

Drought conditions eased in latest update

Minnesota’s drought eased thanks to last week’s soaking for much of central and western Minnesota and portions of the North Shore.

Forty-seven percent of the state is now in at least moderate drought, that’s down from 63 percent last week. The latest update includes the soaking many of us received midweek last week:

Compared to the April 3 update, the April 10 update shows improvements along the North Shore and in southern and west-central Minnesota. The severe drought category in western Minnesota vanished thanks to the rain and snowfall.

The Twin Cities and St. Cloud are now some of the few spots (along with Cook county in the Arrowhead) that aren’t considered to be in drought or abnormally dry.