textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Minimal precipitation chances until the 18th of November.

- Much colder Thursday into the weekend.

- Warmer and breezy conditions to start next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 146 PM CST Wed Nov 11 2026

A cold front moved across the Iowa border shortly after noon today, kicking off a period of cold advection that will result in near to below normal temperatures from Thursday through the weekend. Water vapor imagery highlights a zone of subsidence and drying immediately behind the front, which has resulted in a wedge of mostly sunny skies between the frontal boundary and the cyclonic flow stratocu field to the north. That cyclonic flow statocu field gets here overnight and remains until the arrival of the surface highs starts to clear it out Friday. It will not be cloudy the whole time, with transient holes moving about the cloud deck, but otherwise, tonight through Thursday night will be your classic fall weather with cold north winds and stratocu filled skies. As for whether or not we'll see precipitation with this setup, that looks tough to do given the shallow depth of the cloud bearing layer, but the best chance comes tonight. RAP soundings show the deepest cloud layers occurring overnight (upwards of 4k feet in western WI), with a strong shortwave dropping down off of Lake Superior in the northerly flow. This will open the door for some shower activity overnight, mainly east of I-35. Any precip would be brief/light, but the deeper into the night precip falls, the greater the chance you may get your first glimpse of snowflakes falling this season, but this is definitely not the snow storm you are looking for.

For Friday through the weekend, a blocking pattern at h5 will keep the surface high parked over the upper MS Valley. We'll have light winds and mostly clear skies, which will allow for a very gradual modification of the airmass through the weekend, with highs in the upper 30s on Friday heading for the low to mid 40s by Sunday (which is where our normals are at the moment). To go with this will be our first truly chilly mornings of the fall, with Saturday morning looking the coldest, with some lows in the teens possible. For the Twin Cities, we haven't seen a low even approach 20 since a 23 back on April 7th, so this will coldest we've been in 7 months. But that cold won't last long...

Next week, the upper ridge will move off to the east as troughing develops over western North America. It could be quite breezy Monday through Wednesday next week as a strong pressure gradient develops between low pressure over the Rockies and a high across the eastern seaboard. Exactly how the pressure gradient sets up will determine just how windy we'll be next week, but our current forecast from the NBM is likely a bit underdone on winds next week given model spread this far out. These southerly winds also bring a quick end to our run of cooler weather, with highs back into the 50s by Tuesday and Wednesday, with some 60s not out of the question as well. Still missing from the forecast early next week are rain chances, but that still looks to change Thursday as the first of the waves from the western trough arrives. Although when/where any potential precipitation tracks with this is still quite uncertain, it will still be plenty warm enough for all rain.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 556 PM CST Wed Nov 11 2026

Expecting the deck of MVFR cigs moving down from eastern North Dakota to continue to fill in this evening with northerly winds. Another area of cloud cover is moving down across the Arrowhead and northern Wisconsin. Borderline VFR/MVFR cigs are expected through much of the overnight period with spotty drizzle/flurries, particularly for western Wisconsin. This precip is not expected to cause any visibility reductions, so have left out any mention in the TAF. Clouds stick around through much of tomorrow with ceilings improving to VFR by mid morning.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ FRI...VFR. Wind N 5kts. SAT...VFR. Wind SE 5kts. SUN...VFR. Wind SE 5kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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