textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered thunderstorms still expected this morning over mainly southwest and far southern MN, some of which may produce strong winds, frequent lightning and brief downpours.

- Another round of scattered thunderstorms possible for similar areas early Thursday morning but with less severe potential.

- Best chance for widespread steady rainfall comes Friday night into Saturday morning.

- Temperatures to remain very close to normal values through Wednesday, then drop below normal Thursday onward.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 313 AM CDT Tue Aug 11 2026

The wavy west-to-east quasi-stationary front referenced in previous discussions sill remains draped over WY-NE-IA-IL-IN this morning, with low pressure centers along it analyzed over the NE/IA border and the western SD/NE border. This appears to be a bit farther south than earlier forecasts, which as such is keeping the bulk of thunderstorm activity shunted to the south, mainly over far southeastern SD, northeastern NE and into northwestern IA. That said, the expectation is that this front and the low over the NE/IA border will slide slightly northeast, which still may interact with strong H85-H7 winds (in the 40-60kt range) and a rather unstable environment featuring dewpoints still into the mid 60s to lower 70s and PWATs over 1.5". Weak isentropic lift north of the front has kept scattered light rain showers sliding eastward over the WFO MPX coverage area overnight, only producing a trace to a couple hundredths at any given location. However, the longer we go through the early morning hours and past sunrise, the lesser the chance that any organized convection will impact southwestern and southern portions of our coverage area. Still kept "likely" PoPs in place for far southern portions of our coverage area but confidence is dropping hour-by-hour that this may come to fruition so some changes may still be needed in the gridded hourly forecasts through sunrise.

Once past sunrise, upper level forcing in the form of a deep trough over central NOAM will flatten and shift eastward, allowing for northwest flow to develop while the surface features also shift off to the southeast. This will allow for partial clearing and a more stable atmosphere to take hold. The SWODY1 Marginal Risk is mainly for any morning activity and PoPs accordingly drop from late morning on with a mix of sun and clouds underneath passing high cirrus and smoke over the area for this afternoon-evening. A few light rain showers are possible in western MN tonight in response to a weak low level trough emanating from a surface low over NE/KS but anything that does develop tonight will be of nearly no consequence.

Wednesday during the day looks to remain dry but weak nocturnal forcing close to the same stalled out frontal boundary may again bring scattered showers/thunderstorms to southwestern and southern MN late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. Strong-to- severe storms are possible due to another modest surge in low-to-mid level shear, but coverage will be meager and overall upper level forcing is lacking so there is a much better chance of not having strong-to-severe storms than there is in them being realized.

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 better 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 into much of Saturday, including QPFs over an inch for much of southern MN over a 30-36 hour period. Not expecting much in the way of thunderstorm activity but a few embedded t-storms are certainly possible.

A slight warming trend is now noted in the blended model consensus for the first part of next week, in conjunction with a drying out period as well.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 626 AM CDT Tue Aug 11 2026

With convection well off to the south/east of all terminals, will run with VFR conditions at all sites for this duration. Some mid-level cloud cover remains in the wake of the convection, potentially with occasional MVFR ceilings but that will not be prolonged. Generally light NE winds through the daytime hours today that will go light/variable overnight.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ THU...VFR. Wind NE 5-10 kts. FRI...Mainly VFR. Chc -TSRA/MVFR late. Wind SE 10 kts. SAT...-RA likely, mainly A.M. Chc MVFR. Wind SE 10-15 kts shifting to NW.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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