textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Lingering locally heavy rain in portions of west central Minnesota overnight.

UPDATE

Issued at 1151 PM CDT Thu Jul 30 2026

Severe threat has ended, with only some lingering showers and a few thunderstorms mainly in west central MN. Some rainfall rates of 2 inches per hour still observed in a few spots, but not consistently over the same area and over locations that didn't see much precipitation earlier in the night. Will continue to keep an eye on rainfall, but unless the heavier cells start moving well north or well south of where they currently are occurring, not expecting any flood impacts.

UPDATE Issued at 635 PM CDT Thu Jul 30 2026

Adjusted POPs for current radar trends, with additional convection developing near the frontal boundary currently stretching from northwestern MN down into the Valley City area. While still plenty of instability to work with, shear remains pretty weak, and most of our reports so far have been flooding from heavy rain rather than hail or damaging winds. Will continue to keep an eye on flooding threat as additional showers and storms move through this evening, but should be settling down around midnight.

..SEVERE STORMS TODAY

Scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue through the afternoon and evening hours, with likely expansion in some areas. Precipitable water is fairly high, between 1.5-1.9", and flow is extremely weak aloft. Shear within the lowest 6km is at best 5-15 knots and the bulk of shear is above 300mb. DCAPE is fairly high and above 1000 J/kg, especially the further south and east you go. As a result, downburst winds are likely at times this afternoon, but should be a fairly sporadic nature and unlikely to be widespread. With the very slow forward propagation of convection however, flash flooding may develop this afternoon/evening if storms stay over one area long enough. With the antecedent dry conditions though, it will likely be difficult to get much more than urban flooding. While not impossible to see rural flash flooding, the ongoing drought makes the probability low. Storms will continue through the evening, but with near surface stabilization as time goes on, downburst winds will likely become less widespread (or as widespread as now).

Finally, the sad truth with this is the scattered convection will make some get decent rain amounts, but not everyone. Don't expect a widespread heavy rainfall event. Some will get quite a bit but others may not see much.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1151 PM CDT Thu Jul 30 2026

VFR conditions at all TAF sites, with some lingering showers at KBJI and perhaps getting close to KFAR also. With light and variable winds, will have to watch to see if we get any shallow fog formation where there was recent rainfall. Confidence in any one site seeing fog is low as visibility probs below a mile are only 20 to 50 percent in narrow bands. Will keep out of the TAFs for now, and if any fog does develop it will burn off by 15Z. Winds will pick up out of the north, with the Red River airports seeing gusts up to 20 kts at times. Winds will settle down again by Friday evening.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...None. MN...None.