textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- A rather active pattern begins Saturday and continues into much of next week. Greatest risk for strong to severe storms comes Monday and Tuesday

- Cool through Saturday, then much warmer and more humid Sunday through Tuesday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 202 PM CDT Fri Apr 10 2026

It's a beautiful sunny spring day out there today as high pressure slides across the Upper MS Valley. Hopefully you can get out and enjoy the sun today, because it looks to be a rare sight over the next week or two...

Zooming out and looking at the large scale pattern, there's a trough moving into California today that will kick off our period of more active weather. The lead shortwave from this trough will move out across the Plains tonight and as it does so, it will send a LLJ and warm front surging north. As we head into early next week, the trough to our west will reload, with the next trough moving through the upper Midwest Tuesday into Wednesday. Beneath this at the surface, we'll have a strong frontal boundary wandering through the northern Plains/upper Midwest Saturday through Tuesday, with that front finally getting pushed out of the area Wednesday as the upper trough pushes through. This will bring a brief break in the active weather, but by the end of next week, we'll have our next shortwave getting ejected out of the western trough moving across the upper MS Valley, with the next round of wet weather bringing a potentially soggy end to the week.

So going into a bit more detail on a day-by-day basis...

Saturday, we'll have a 40-50kt LLJ moving in during the afternoon. This will result in strong isentropic lift and the development of showers during the morning. HREF members are a bit muted in their shower development, though the CAMs often underplay the amount of precipitation that develops in warm advective regimes, so we continue to run with likely and categorical pops by the afternoon. Instability at this point is minimal, so we're not expecting much thunderstorm activity with this lead round of showers. The one concern for Saturday comes with our highs. The HRRR and RAP are a good 5-10 degrees colder than the NBM for highs on Saturday as they keep highs in the 40s for most of our area. This is the result of dense cloud cover showing up early enough to limit the amount of solar insolation we get, which in turn limits our temperatures for Saturday. We did mix some Consshort into the NBM for temperatures on Saturday to cool temperatures some, but this may not have been enough.

Going into Saturday night, the main area of isentropic lift will push into western WI, but forecast soundings back west in MN have a classic drizzle look, so although the heavier rain may end Saturday evening in MN, we may end up keeping drizzle and fog going most of the night as we see dewpoints in the 60s push up into southern MN.

For Sunday, a surface low will move along the Canadian border. This will put is in the position of getting hit with the dry slot on Sunday. It does look like for Sunday the main question will be how far east do temperatures in the 80s make it with that dryslot moving in during the day. We do move a surface cold front across eastern MN and western WI during the afternoon, but that dryslot will be bringing a rather stout inversion in over the area on Sunday and with the primary axis of moisture transport pushing to the east into central and eastern WI, we're stuck in a region that doesn't see much activity. Reflectivity forecasts from the RRFS and NAMnest also show zero convective development Sunday in our area, so it really looks unlikely that we'll have any severe weather to worry about with the current Day 3 Marginal Risk from the SPC as we just won't have any convection around.

Monday and Tuesday on the other hand are looking more interesting from the severe convection perspective. For Monday, the cold front that comes through Sunday will become a strong warm front near the Iowa border. Temperatures south of the warm front will warm into the mid/upper 80s with dewpoints well into the 60s, so a very unstable environment will become realized in the warm sector. Aloft, the dryslot collapses on Monday, so our capping won't be as strong. Add in the LLJ reloading back west across Iowa and we have all ingredients coming together (moisture, lift, instability, and shear) to support a severe risk later in the day on Monday. Just where that warm front ends up will be key to where the risk resides. The latest NBM wind forecast brings this warm front Monday up to almost the US- 14 corridor in southern MN. Looking at the RRFS, it's 84 hour forecast shows robust convection developing along the front just south of the border in northeast IA, in a similar position to where the AIFS shows heavy rain developing in northeast Iowa Monday afternoon/evening. All types of severe weather would be possible along this boundary, along with some training storms and heavy rain, so this will be a period to keep a close eye on.

What changes for Tuesday is we'll see a surface low come out of Nebraska, with the NBM wind forecast showing a low going from roughly Mankato to Eau Claire Tuesday afternoon. Just how warm/unstable the warm sector out ahead of the low can get is a bit uncertain, but anytime you get a surface moving through during peak heating does at least raise a few eyebrows. However, current instability forecasts would say we're kind of cloudy and rainy, with the better instability coming up into the vicinity of eastern Iowa and southwest WI. This is also the region where the CSU ML probabilities highlight the greatest threat for severe weather on Tuesday.

The good news is behind this low and associated upper trough, we will get a chance to dry out Wednesday into Thursday, but that quiet period will be short lived, with more shortwave energy coming out of the western CONUS to end next week, which will lead to a renewed threat for showers and thunderstorms to end next week. Welcome to Spring!

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1243 PM CDT Fri Apr 10 2026

We'll have clear skies with light north to northwest winds today, with the winds becoming light and variable overnight as they make the switch over to the southeast as we get on the backside of a surface high. Saturday morning, we'll cloud up really fast, with showers developing as well as a LLJ begins surging north across the Plains. Have started to introduce some shra potential at the end of the period for our MN TAFs. I will say, the HREF members don't look all that impressive with their shower development in this warm advective regime on Saturday, though it should be noted that the CAMs often underplay the extent of convection we see in these kinds of warm advective patterns, so we have leaned a bit harder into the shower potential than what you might expect from looking at the HREF. Finally, this period will be ending with the cigs in a nose dive, though any IFR or lower conditions will be coming after this period.

KMSP...We could see showers develop as early as 14z Saturday, though it's the afternoon as the LLJ gets closer that our shra threat really ramps up. Cigs will be falling pretty fast as well, with MVFR cigs expected to develop between 20z and 00z Saturday afternoon.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ SUN...MVFR/-TSRA early, then VFR. Wind SW 15-20G35 kts. MON...VFR early, then chc MVFR/-TSRA. Wind SE 5-10 kts. TUE...MVFR. Chc -TSRA. Wind NE 5-10 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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