textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Showers and thunderstorms return to the forecast tonight into Tuesday morning. A few stronger storms may produce isolated damaging wind and hail across western MN.

- Highs in the upper 70s Tuesday and Wednesday with a rebound into the upper 80s at the conclusion of the work week and over the weekend.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 203 PM CDT Mon Aug 3 2026

Current satellite showing mid to high-level clouds across much of the northern half of Minnesota. This being out ahead of a surface cold front that is expected to move SE across MN/WI later today through tonight. For the rest of this afternoon, folks can expect temperatures to be a bit warmer than they were this past weekend. Most sites will warm in to the mid-80s this afternoon. It will feel a bit sticky though as dew points creep near 70 degrees, especially across western MN. Wind speeds will be elevated with gusts reaching 25-35mph. Clouds will gradually increase from north to south for the remainder of the day as the aforementioned cold front approaches. Given the warmer and stickier air to our west, the better chance for the strongest precip looks to be focused across NW'rn Minnesota late this evening. The Storm Prediction Center has a slight risk (level 2 of 5) for severe thunderstorms that mainly will be capable of producing large hail and damaging wind gusts. However, given better shear profiles across NW'rn MN into the Dakotas, a tornado cannot be ruled out for areas NW of Little Falls down to Morris. Through time, forcing and instability wanes and storms that congeal into broken segments across central MN are expected to scatter out into eastern MN/western WI by early tomorrow morning. Heavy rain, especially in the early onset of this system will be likely as PWAT values are elevated near 1.8 to 2.0". As for rainfall accumulation, The bullseye will remain well of to our north near Grand Forks and the Int'l border. Most of us across central and southern MN could see perhaps a few hundredths of an inch whereas areas west could squeeze out a closer to a quarter inch. As always, locally higher amounts could occur with any thunderstorms.

By mid-Tuesday morning, most precip should have diminished as the boundary stalls over eastern MN and western WI. Troughing aloft gradually guides this boundary further eastward Tuesday afternoon but this in turn will create another opportunity for CI to occur across southern MN down to the MN/IA border. Nothing widespread is expected but do have 20-30 PoP mentions for the potential for scattered pulse-like summertime convection. At this time, no severe weather is expected. Temperatures post- fropa will be noticeably cooler with highs ranging in the 70s both days with dew points mainly in the 50s.

Temperatures do make a comeback later in the week, upper-level flow becomes more zonal with warmer h85 temps being trapped just south of the Canadian Border. Highs will reach the lower 80s by Thursday and then reaching the upper 80s by this weekend. The next fair shot at precip wouldn't arrive until Saturday night into Sunday.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1236 AM CDT Tue Aug 4 2026

A cold front is moving across central Minnesota early this morning. The wind shift has been a little quicker than forecast, so TAFs have been updated to reflect this. KAXN and KRWF may continue to see gusts up to 25-30kts for the next few hours before trending down. Showers and storms appear to be falling apart in our area with the more persistent convection across northeast Minnesota and South Dakota. Did some adjusting of TEMPO/PROB30s through this morning with MVFR cigs/vis possible.

Most of the period will be VFR with mid and high clouds sticking around through much of the day Tuesday. Some models were suggesting that behind the cold front, some smoke could make it to the surface, but so far, that doesn't seem to be happening so have left it out of any TAFs. Wind speeds continue to diminish into this evening and go more westerly by the end of the period.

KMSP...Decided to remove prevailing MVFR conditions, but kept the PROB30 for TSRA. This is probably overdone, but since it was already in and has been for several issuances, decided to leave it be. Timing remains sometime between 08z-11z. Northwest winds around 10kts will diminish to around 5kts during the evening.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ WED...VFR. Wind VRB to SW 5-10kts. THU...VFR. Wind SW 5-10G20kts. FRI...VFR. Wind SW 5-10G20kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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