textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Cooler, more seasonable, temperatures through Friday with warmer above normal temperatures returning this weekend into next week.

- Next chance for widespread rain on Thursday, most likely across southern Minnesota and western WI with chances decreasing to the northwest.

- Widespread frost/freeze Friday night into Saturday morning.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 334 PM CDT Wed Oct 14 2026

With a surface high limiting mechanical mixing and this mornings sounding at MPX showing a strong inversion, stratus has been slow to break up today. This has really limited temperature rises today, with most of the area seeing highs in the upper 40s to mid 50s, or 5 to 10 degrees below normal. Water vapor imagery and h5 analysis this afternoon shows us what our next concern is and that is the two waves heading our way. The northern stream wave is a shortwave coming across Alberta, with a southern stream wave in the form of an h5 low over the 4-corners. These two features will phase Thursday over the central CONUS, causing a surface low to deepen. This surface low will be a panhandle hook type system, with the southern stream wave driving a surface low from the TX panhandle to northern Illinois during the day on Thursday into Thursday night. There will be a healthy deformation band of precip to the northwest of the low track, with the heaviest precip falling across Iowa into southern WI. Still, the northern edge of this precipitation shield will come into southern MN, which will setup the southeast to northwest gradient in rainfall amounts we're expecting. We've seen a slight uptick in precip amounts along that Albert Lea to Eau Claire line, with amounts up around 0.75" depicted on the REFS. This falls to around 0.25" in the Twin Cities, a couple hundredths in St. Cloud, and nothing at Alexandria (until Thursday night with the potential for wrap around precip in the strong CAA regime). Besides the rain, the northern stream will bring in some strong CAA Thursday night, with wind gusts upwards of 45mph out of the northwest possible out in our typical windy areas of west central through south central MN.

Following this will come a quick blast of cooler air as a 1040mb high comes out of the Rockies. This will set us up for our coldest morning of the Fall so far on Saturday morning. This will be our first widespread freeze of the season outside of the core of the Twin Cities urban metro area. Even for the Twin Cities, this will likely be the first time the low drops below 40 this season. For a freeze, we're in the ballpark of the 90th percentile for a late freeze (so 90% of falls have seen a first freeze earlier than this). For MSP, the latest we've had our first sub-40 reading in the fall was October 17th back in 1931, which also happens to be the day Saturday falls on this year, so why lot tack on the latest first sub- 40 low of the Fall on to the latest 90 on record for this October.

After Friday, we're back into ridging and mild southerly winds. In fact, the NBM has southerly winds of some variety remaining in place from Saturday through Wednesday. This will setup another stretch of very pleasant fall weather. H85 temperatures will be running up around +10C starting Sunday, with large swaths of the MPX area likely to see highs in the low to mid 70s starting Sunday and likely lasting through much of next week. As for the end of the week, models have been hinting at a stronger system moving across the central CONUS. It's still there, but to no surprise, we're seeing the models slowing down the demise of our ridge, with that next fropa and chances for more widespread precipitation now getting pushed out toward next weekend (24th/25th). Given what we've had so far and the fact that the only sign of cold air this month is what we'll see Thursday night through Friday night, it's certainly looking more plausible that the warmest October on record could be in play this year.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1225 PM CDT Wed Oct 14 2026

Persistent stratus is expected through the forecast period. MVFR cigs may let up a little afternoon and overnight before coming back down ahead of some -SHRA chances for tomorrow afternoon. The high centered to our west will move over and then into western Wisconsin, allowing for northeasterly winds to go light and variable overnight. Still some uncertainty in how far north and west any -SHRA will make it, so have left AXN dry and included PROB30s for RWF and STC.

KMSP...A return to VFR is anticipated by this evening through much of the night as mentioned above. Early tomorrow, MVFR cigs return with -SHRA chances increasing by mid morning. Timing of heaviest rain should be around midday, so have included a PROB30 to reflect this.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ FRI...Chc MVFR cigs early. Wind NW 20-25G35kts. SAT...VFR. Wind SW 10-15G25kts. SUN...VFR. Wind SW 10-15G20kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MN...None. WI...None.