textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- The prolonged heat wave continues to start this week. Extreme Heat Warnings and Heat Advisories have been posted through Monday evening. The hottest day will be today when heat indices will reach 100 to 110.

- Gradual improvement from the heat this week, with highs generally in the mid 80s to low 90s each day.

- Low confidence persists on convective development through Sunday night due to capping and scattered/disorganized nature of storms.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 240 AM CDT Sun Jul 26 2026

Today...As of 2AM, and narrow cluster of decaying storms is tracking east across the Twin Cities metro. After stepping outside our office in Chanhassen, we can confirm that there was a good amount of lightning with it, and an even greater amount of bugs buzzing around. It certainly adds to our ambiance of a hot and humid day as dewpoints remain in the 70s for a good portion of the region overnight. And we'll only see Td's increase today as southerly flow continues to advect more moisture northwards (portions of southern MN could see Tds exceeding 80F by this afternoon). An Extreme Heat Warning remains in effect through this evening with much of the area expected to see heat indices in the triple digits for several hours. The high end potential for heat today is greater than yesterday knowing this incoming airmass set all-time record highs in Rapid City and produced heat indices north of 110F in Sioux Falls. At the same time, our greater dewpoints will limit how much we warm up to some extent.

The other wild card again of course is lingering cloud cover from these overnight storms. What we saw yesterday over eastern MN and western WI was a layer of stratus getting trapped within the low-level inversion and just hanging around long enough to prevent those areas from warming up as much as western MN was able to yesterday. Early signs are showing cloud cover quickly clearing behind the storms, as the steering winds push it southeast. In addition to the storms and cloud cover, there are pockets of locally dense fog this morning, especially across western WI where cloud cover has been thinner and air temps have been able to cool down to dewpoints.

The Slight Risk remains in place today for severe weather potential across the Upper MS Valley. The majority of hi-res guidance suggests the main axis of storm development today will be somewhere across northeast MN and Lake Superior where the mid-level cap is bit weaker. Storms then slide southeast, likely staying mostly across WI and MI. If we end up a few degrees cooler around 700 mb, it is possible that we have storms fire further west into MN which would have the potential to produce severe wind and hail. Timing for any storms will most likely be from the late afternoon into the evening hours.

Monday...We begin to "cool off" as the upper level ridge weakens and surface winds shift out of the north. This will drop dewpoint temperatures about 5 to 10 degrees and leave air temps in the low to mid 90s for areas with limited cloud cover. A Heat Advisory was issued for the urban heat island of the Twin Cities metro to highlight these lingering heat impacts, especially given the overnight temperatures into Monday morning will be in the mid- upper 70s. The other thing that could obviously have a major impact on this would be any sort of overnight MCS like the deterministic Euro wants to suggest.

Tuesday through Saturday...Things remain warm, but otherwise relatively quiet under the northwest flow aloft. Skies will become hazy at times as elevated wildfire smoke continues to stream east from the western coast. There are no major signals for rain outside of Thursday night into Friday as guidance continues to pinpoint a weak mid-level shortwave within the northwest flow. The latest NBM PoPs bring widespread 30 to 50 percent across the area which looks reasonable given the PWAT values around 1.5 to 1.8 inches and a couple thousand Joules of MUCAPE. Next weekend looks promising as surface high pressure starts to spread in from the north and leave us in a broad area of subsidence.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1234 AM CDT Sun Jul 26 2026

MCS across southern MN and IA is quickly decaying, but a few elevated storms have developed south of AXN. The thinking is these storms should not persist very long, so kept STC and MSP dry, but will continue to monitor. The low stratus that attempted to develop across southern MN and western WI is also scattering out from the subsidence with the decaying MCS. Therefore, mostly VFR conditions will continue until the high cloud canopy from the MCS dissipates at which point fog may become the main issue toward sunrise.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ MON...VFR. NW at 10-15G25kts. TUE...VFR. Wind N 5-10 kts. WED...VFR. Wind SE 5-10 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MN...Heat Advisory until 11 AM CDT this morning for Benton-Chisago- Douglas-Goodhue-Isanti-Kanabec-Mille Lacs-Morrison- Sherburne-Stearns-Todd. Extreme Heat Warning from 11 AM this morning to 9 PM CDT this evening for Benton-Chisago-Douglas-Goodhue-Isanti-Kanabec- Mille Lacs-Morrison-Sherburne-Stearns-Todd. Extreme Heat Warning until 9 PM CDT this evening for Anoka- Blue Earth-Brown-Carver-Chippewa-Dakota-Faribault- Freeborn-Hennepin-Kandiyohi-Lac Qui Parle-Le Sueur-Martin- McLeod-Meeker-Nicollet-Pope-Ramsey-Redwood-Renville-Rice- Scott-Sibley-Steele-Stevens-Swift-Waseca-Washington- Watonwan-Wright-Yellow Medicine. Heat Advisory from 9 PM this evening to 8 PM CDT Monday for Anoka-Carver-Dakota-Hennepin-Ramsey-Scott-Washington. WI...Heat Advisory until 11 AM CDT this morning for Pierce-Polk-St. Croix. Extreme Heat Warning from 11 AM this morning to 9 PM CDT this evening for Barron-Chippewa-Dunn-Eau Claire-Pepin-Pierce- Polk-Rusk-St. Croix.