textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Soaking rain expected today in western Minnesota, with some non-severe thunderstorms possible as well. Scattered showers and lighter rain amounts expected for eastern MN into western WI tonight into Saturday afternoon.

- The second half of Memorial Day weekend through next week is still on track to see above normal temperatures with mainly dry conditions.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 322 AM CDT Fri May 22 2026

Early this morning, a long wave trough was digging into eastern Wyoming. Today, this trough will track from the Nebraska Panhandle, northeast to northeast NoDak. This will pull a surface low up across the eastern Dakotas, with a plume of deeper moisture coming up across western MN ahead of a cold front. This will result in a good soaking rain for western MN today. Besides the rain, a narrow ribbon of muCAPE will come in with the cold front this afternoon, so there will be convective elements within this shield of rain, which will help boost rainfall amounts locally in western MN. Probability Matched QPF from the HREF shows 1-1.5 inches of rain being possible from southwest into west central MN today/tonight. A welcome site for what has been the driest portion of our area for year-to-date precipitation. As we go through tonight and Saturday, this cold front will slowly work east across the MPX area. However, as it does so, the upper wave forcing it will be moving deeper and deeper into central Canada. With this front moving away from its upper forcing, we will see decreasing coverage of rain and amounts as you move east of the US-71 corridor. This is how we can go from forecasting around an inch of rain in western MN, that falls to less than a tenth of an inch in the Eau Claire area. For temperatures, we did use the HRRR/RAP to knock back highs in western MN today where cloud cover and rainfall will hold highs back in the low to mid 50s. In western WI, some breaks in the clouds will allow highs to push 70, so we'll have a pretty good west to east temperature gradient across the area this afternoon. For Saturday, highs will come down to the amount of cloud cover we see. The NBM highs looked a little too optimistic given the moist cyclonic flow we'll have in place, so we did take a little off the NBM highs for Saturday.

Going into Sunday, the longwave trough will be moving across the upper MS Valley. Moisture and forcing look to be lacking, but within the ensembles, deterministic, and AI models, you see the idea of there being some remnant surface convergence boundaries being left over from the front bringing us the rain today that could provide enough forcing to spark some widely scattered showers, though on the whole, it should be dry, with highs warming toward 80 degrees.

Next week, the evolution of the weather pattern is interesting, but will evolve into a large scale pattern that is pretty quiet for us. That weather pattern will see an upper ridge build northwest into central Canada from a high centered between Bermuda and the Bahamas. This blocking ridge will keep any systems from getting into the upper MS Valley and will also promote the formation of a Hudson high. Our warmest weather will come Monday and Tuesday when our winds will be out of the south. We'll see highs both days jump into the upper 80s, with a few 90 degree readings possible as well in MN. As we get into Wednesday, the Hudson high will start dropping into the Great Lakes, which will turn our winds from the south over to the east. These easterly low level winds will take a nibble out of our temperatures, with highs for the second half of next week expected to fall back into the lower 80s. Given the upper ridging and Hudson high combination, rainfall will be hard to come by next week, with the only hope for some rain coming in the form of any weak backdoor cold fronts we can scare up. You can't rule that out, but in general, after today, don't expect much rain in your garden for the next 2 weeks.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 633 AM CDT Fri May 22 2026

Expect MVFR/VFR conditions with periods of rain across the western TAF sites of KRWF, KMKT, and KAXN. Other TAF sites will be mainly VFR until deeper moisture arrives.

The chance for thunder is low across the region, but did continue with the PROB30 at KRWF. Otherwise expect southeast winds throughout the TAF period, with MVFR/IFR clouds later tonight into Saturday morning.

KMSP... No significant changes from the previous TAF. Periods of light rain showers this morning, then a break mid-day, will rain showers returning Friday evening into Saturday morning. Expect clouds to lower overnight as well, with MVFR conditions developing after midnight tonight.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ SUN...VFR. Wind SW 5-10 kts. MON...VFR. Wind SW 5-15 kts. TUE...VFR. Wind VRBL 05-10 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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