textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Next shower and thunderstorm chance on Thursday with a more active period this weekend into early next week.

- Fire weather remains a concern with Friday as the day with the highest risk due to the overlap of gusty winds and dry air.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 247 AM CDT Wed May 13 2026

High pressure will be the dominant force today. Some mid level clouds are still hanging on over western Wisconsin early this morning, but they will continue to gradually move out and today will be a sunny day. Winds are much lighter today under the high pressure, but diurnal heating will once again allow for ample mixing. It is just that today the winds that are mixed down are not nearly as high as what we had yesterday. So despite a similar RH setup, fire weather is not as much of a concern for today.

Thursday will be impacted by a surface low traveling through southern Canada. Initially we will see warm sector showers and thunderstorms like we saw early Tuesday morning. Once again similar to Tuesday, once the cold front passes through, we will get another environment, Friday, that looks to be critical fire weather. This is all for the same reasons as Tuesday's Red Flag Warning with more ample mixing, but unlike today higher winds aloft. Much warmer temperatures on Friday will warm into the upper 70s to mid 80s bringing RH values even lower than what we saw on Tuesday. RH values don't improve much until Sunday when we finally see some moisture move in again. Saturday fire weather looks to be less of concern with lighter winds once again expected.

Late Saturday into the next week looks to be the start of a more active period. This could help to provide some much needed rain for a more widespread green up that could help to end to spring fire weather season. This more active and moist period is driven by one large system that will move from the Rockies on Saturday to the eastern seaboard by the middle of next week. This large system impacting us has a high >80% chance to occur. How this evolves with QPF and specific timing still has a good amount of spread within ensemble solutions. In general there is a broad precipitation envelope from Saturday afternoon into the following Tuesday night. Does this mean rain the whole time? No, it will not rain this whole time. This is just when NBM has PoPs due to the spread in the start and end times within the ensembles. The main period of overlap between these different members and systems is Sunday night into Monday. That's where we see the greatest clustering and the highest NBM PoPs. As we get closer the ensembles will cluster more allow us to shrink this larger envelope of times from Sat to Tue. Timing will be important as instability at this point looks to be fairly diurnally dependent with better chances for thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening on Monday vs the Sunday night into early Monday morning period. SPC currently has a day 6 just to our south, so will be worth keeping an eye on the final evolution of this pattern to see if, especially parts of southern Minnesota, we see a severe weather risk.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1220 AM CDT Wed May 13 2026

Gusty northerly winds calming overnight from west to east. Winds will pick back up again along the typical diurnal curve on Wednesday, but will not as gusty as yesterday. In the evening winds will calm and shift to the east. Should be VFR through the period, but could get close to MVFR with some mid level clouds in western Wisconsin this morning based on upstream ceilings.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ THU...VFR, chc -TSRA/MVFR. Wind S 15-20G30 kts. FRI...VFR. Wind SW to W 15-20G30 kts. SAT...VFR, chc -SHRA. Wind N 5-10 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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