textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- After a dry day today, scattered thunderstorms can be expected for western through southern Minnesota late tonight into Thursday morning. There is a Marginal (level 1 of 5) Risk that a few storms may be severe.

- Widespread steady rainfall is likely Friday night through Saturday.

- Temperatures remain warm today then go on a cooling trend through the weekend into early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 404 AM CDT Wed Aug 12 2026

The wavy west-to-east quasi-stationary front referenced in previous discussions sill remains draped over the Central Plains into the mid-Mississippi River Valley and southern Great Lakes. Weak high pressure remains to the north of this front, essentially sitting atop MN/WI through the day today. This will result in dry but continued warm conditions today with highs into the 80s area- wide with a mix of sun and clouds. Clouds increase tonight as a low- level trough feature, emanating from a low pressure center along the front over the Plains, extends northeast into the Upper Midwest. Once again, enhanced low-level nocturnal jetting interacting with this trough within a continued moist environment (low 70s dewpoints again expected in far western into far southern MN) will spark off scattered showers/thunderstorms from this evening through daybreak Thursday morning. The focus area of convection will be far western through far southern MN, in closer proximity to the omnipresent surface front and its associated trough. Storms look to develop in eastern SD and drive southeast, potentially in enough of an organized fashion where a few storms could be strong to severe late tonight into early Thursday morning. The SPC SWODY1 does a good job of focusing in the Marginal Risk of that potential, while also indicating that the better chances for higher concentration/intensity of storms will be to the south of the WFO MPX coverage area.

A small airmass change looks to occur starting on Thursday as northwest flow takes a better hold over the region and modified colder Canadian high pressure makes inroads from the northwest. This will start a period of highs dropping into the 70s area- wide and lows in the 50s outside of the Twin Cities metro (near 60 within). There is decent agreement on an organized area of low pressure arriving from the southwest Friday into Saturday, dragging a slug of moisture from the Deep South into the Upper Midwest as it arrives. This looks to result in fairly widespread rainfall from late Friday through much of Saturday in the form of more stratiform rain rather than convection. That said, model guidance has tweaked down the overall QPF of the system, ranging from around a half inch in the Twin Cities metro to closer to an inch near the IA border and into southwest WI from Friday through Saturday. Still not expecting much in the way of thunderstorm activity but a few embedded t-storms are certainly possible.

Temperatures overall look to remain fairly steady from late this week into early next week, with the north-central CONUS remaining under the influence of northwest flow. There are still some signs of a western ridge developing late next week which could result in an appreciable warming for the Upper Midwest. However, overall blended guidance through the next 7 days starts out with temperatures above normal today then dropping slightly below normal from Friday through the middle of next week.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 634 AM CDT Wed Aug 12 2026

All sites expected to run VFR through this duration, but chances increase late tonight through early morning Thursday (particularly for western-southern MN) for convection to reach southwest MN from eastern SD. At this point, have added PROB30 mention to AXN-RWF-MKT for MVFR SHRA, but there is still the possibility of IFR TSRA but confidence is too low to include at this point. Winds still light throughout, from an easterly direction if anything.

KMSP...Maintained a dry TAF but there is low probability of having SHRA/TSRA potentially moving near MSP close to 12z Thursday morning. Will let later TAFs address this possibility.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ FRI...VFR, -SHRA/MVFR likely late. Wind SE 10-15 kts. SAT...-SHRA, chc MVFR/IFR. Wind SE 10 kts shifting to W. SUN...VFR. Wind NW 5-10 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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