textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Seasonable temperatures over the next week with both highs and lows within a few degrees of normal.

- Chance for some thunderstorms in east central Minnesota this evening, next chance for rain early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 142 PM CDT Fri Aug 21 2026

As temperatures have risen this afternoon the low morning's stratus has lifted and been replaced with fair weather cumulus clouds. A frontal passage this evening into the early overnight hours will provide for a chance for a few isolated thunderstorms. Shear is poor and the thermal profile does not allow for much instability. So strong storms are not expected. There looks to be enough instability for some thunderstorms, mainly in east central Minnesota. By the time it gets into western Wisconsin the diurnal temperature drop will lower instability such that chances will decrease further.

Behind this frontal passage high pressure will move in for the weekend. This will give us an overall very nice weekend with mostly sunny to sunny skies and highs up near 80 both days. Clear skies will allow for ample mixing though and we could see some gusty winds in the afternoon, especially on Saturday. Nothing super high, with gusts up around 20-25 mph. Clear skies will allow for ample radiational cooling both Saturday and Sunday nights. Sunday night will also see some CAA so temperatures as low as the 40s will be possible in parts of northeast MN and northwest WI.

On Monday the high pressure will start to move out keeping the daytime fairly similar to the weekend. Late Monday into Tuesday is the next anticipated frontal passage. How much moisture this frontal passage will have to work with is the main question right now. Forecast soundings from the global deterministic models show ample high and mid level saturation with less low level saturation. When looking towards ensemble QPF there is a good amount of spread still which makes the lower NBM PoPs make sense. NBM has kept the PoP chances low to reflect this spread within the ensemble guidance. The spread should decrease over the weekend and provide for a better idea of when and where rain chances will be. The next rain chance past Mon/Tue would be towards the end of the next week and as expected for this time range there is a large spread on timing and level of impact. All of the main global deterministic models have something in that time range though, so it is worth keeping an eye on. Overall no strong temperature advection over the week next week. Which supports the overall near normal temperature forecast.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 634 PM CDT Fri Aug 21 2026

We will start this period with showers in northern MN drifting south. However, the instability that fed these showers does not extend into the MPX area, so we may see some returns on radar, but we aren't expecting much to reach it to the ground. The fact that the storms that developed in the Fargo/Moorehead area back around 22z have fallen apart before reaching Douglas county is a good sign for us remaining dry this evening, so added no precip to these TAFs, with nothing more than an accas field expected. Deep mixing tomorrow will allow for some gusty northwest winds to develop, but it will just make the weather on Saturday some of the nicest weather we see all year.

KMSP...Not anticipating any rain for MSP, just some accas around midnight. That's about it for excitement from the weather department this period.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ SUN...VFR. Wind N 5 kts. MON...VFR, chc -SHRA late night. Wind S 5-10 kts. TUE...VFR, chc -SHRA early. Wind SW 10-15 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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