textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered showers moving through this morning, followed by a mostly dry day before the next round starts tonight.

- Thunderstorms expected on Wednesday with the chance for some strong to severe storms Wednesday afternoon.

- Below normal temperatures (highs in the mid 60s to mid 70s) through the end of the week, with a return to more normal (upper 70s) this weekend into next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 244 AM CDT Tue Jun 16 2026

The surface low will continue to slowly move across Minnesota and into Wisconsin this morning. As this low moves through additional rain showers will occur. With us near a diurnal instability minimum and no storms having formed enough of a cold pool for upscale growth thunderstorm chances have come to an end. The low track will keep southern Minnesota dry with the rain chances mainly over central Minnesota and western Wisconsin this morning. By the afternoon this low should be mostly out with just some low chances for some showers lingering in western Wisconsin. This break will be brief as the next shortwave and associated surface low will be moving in tonight. With this next system there will more moisture transported in with a period of southerly winds at 850 mb as it moves in. This will help to moisten the atmosphere to give more widespread precipitation chances. Both deterministic and ensemble solutions suggest high rain chances broadly across the region as a deep more early spring/winter like low moves through the Upper Midwest. What is interesting about the setup are the severe weather chances. This can broadly be put into two phases: before and after the low passes. Ahead of the surface low passing over southern Minnesota, the surface winds will be from the south and with the strong westerly winds aloft this will produce ample shear and hodographs favorable for supercells. However based on the expected timing of the the low moving though this would be in morning when instability will be low. As instability builds though, that low will continue to move to the east. Based on current model guidance it looks like much of the area could be behind the low by that point. This would change the vertical wind profile to leave us with mostly speed shear. The lack of the two fully overlapping should keep the worst of the severe weather off to our southeast. Since building instability will be key here, southern Minnesota looks to be the main risk area. This is because instability looks to build the highest there and this area has the best chance to overlap with the better shear profile. Due to this chance to SPC has brought a slight risk (2/5 risk level) into southern Minnesota for the chance for large damaging hail.

Wednesday's low will be well to our southeast by Wednesday night and outside of a few more isolated wrap around showers rain chances will come to an end. Looking at the end of the week into the weekend we will remain in a northwest flow pattern with quite a bit of uncertainty still on how active it will be. Looking towards the global ensembles, it varies quite a bit between systems with European members being more active and North American (GEFS and GEPS) staying on the dry side more often. So the spread has not improved in the past day when it comes to confidence in PoP. Where there has been increasing clustering though is for a warming trend to bring us back into normal temperatures (upper 70s) for the weekend. The GEPS even has a few members as we get into next week run above normal and into the 80s.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 635 AM CDT Tue Jun 16 2026

The 12z TAF period opens with light rain showers and MVFR cigs on the backside of a surface low that is moving from eastern MN into western WI. Clouds and showers will gradually depart eastward this morning, with western MN already reporting clear skies. Once the skies clear it will be a relatively quiet day with breezy northwesterly winds gusting to 20-25kts. Rain chances return later tonight, but the presence of dry air in the lowest 10k feet of the column makes the start time and the precipitation rate somewhat of a lower confidence forecast. Took the best blended solution from the hi-res models timing and generally ran with a prevailing "6SM -SHRA"/low VFR cigs combo in the TAFs.

KMSP...Morning batch of showers/MVFR cigs will depart to the east of the terminal early in the period. Breezy diurnal NW winds will be the theme for the remainder of the day. Tracking another round of VFR/perhaps high MVFR rain showers that aims to arrive after midnight.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ WED...MVFR/SHRA likely, chc -TSRA/IFR. Wind SE bcmg NW 5-15G20kts. THU...VFR. Wind NW 5-10G20kts. FRI...VFR. Wind WNW 5-15kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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