Don’t count on a barbecue: Fourth of July to bring rain to southern, central Minnesota

CATHY WURZER: Well, the weather may be putting its own fireworks show on for the 4th of July. It's looking like we're going to be facing some wet weather during fireworks time. In fact, some cities are already postponing their fireworks shows or doing them a day early, like Lake Minnetonka tonight. Joining us right now is MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. Good to have you with us. How are you?

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, I'm great. Good to be here, enjoying this beautiful, beautiful Wednesday, and wish I had better news for tomorrow. But boy.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, gosh. [LAUGHS]

PAUL HUTTNER: Wow.

CATHY WURZER: I can hardly wait to talk to you about this. OK, so what's the latest model forecast on timing and rain for the 4th?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, so glorious today. Get out there, enjoy the lakes, enjoy whatever. It's already 83 in the Twin Cities. We'll hit 85. Tomorrow, it looks like it'll start quiet, but then build as we go through the day.

Scattered showers, thunderstorms, as a low pressure system kind of moves slowly across southern Minnesota. And this is especially southern half, 2/3 of Minnesota. You get up north, we'll see less rain tomorrow. But we could have scattered storms around throughout the day.

I don't think it will rain all day everywhere. There will be a few dry hours in there, Cathy, but there will be scattered storms dumping some heavy rain, lightning and thunder, anytime probably from late morning, midday, right through the afternoon and into tomorrow night.

And some of the models are saying the heaviest rains could come down tomorrow night. We could see 1 to 3 inches of rain across southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, by Friday morning. And, yeah, some of this could be around during fireworks time.

So again, it'll be scattered. It won't be raining everywhere, but these storms will be around. There is a marginal risk for severe weather. Can't rule out hail, some potential wind, high winds, and maybe even a brief tornado or two possible. Again, scattered, not all day, but it'll be around something we've got to keep an eye on.

CATHY WURZER: Hmm, OK, that is substantial rain on areas we don't need to have the rain, obviously. I'm wondering here about the weekend forecast because I was noticing a chance for more rain over the weekend?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, better, but not great. The scattered showers linger into especially Friday morning. We'll be around 73 in the Twin Cities. Lots of 70s Friday. Saturday, I think the best day of the weekend. Partly cloudy, an isolated thunderstorm, 81 in the Twin Cities, maybe 80 around most of the state.

And then Sunday, about another 30% chance of a shower or thunderstorm. So pick your spots this weekend. We'll have some dry weather in there, but there could just be an isolated shower or storm Saturday and Sunday.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Well, because of this incoming heavy rain, I'm wondering about river levels, soil saturation, that kind of thing.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and the Minnesota Crop Report reported what we probably knew this week, right? 53% now of soils in Minnesota have surplus moisture. I know there's standing water in some fields in Carver County and other places around Minnesota, especially in the southwest also.

The good news on the rivers is, most of them are starting to drop now. The Mississippi River in St. Paul, after reaching that major flood crest, has dropped about 2.5 feet since Friday. It's forecast to drop another 2 feet by about Saturday.

The Crow in Delano has dropped about 3 feet. Vermilion River, Crane Lake up north, still expected to rise about a foot, but most of the rivers are falling steadily, which is good news. We'll have to see in southern Minnesota how this additional rainfall affects that over the next couple of days.

CATHY WURZER: Right, absolutely. I'm hoping there is some kind of a drier pattern ahead.

PAUL HUTTNER: It appears there might be toward the end of next week. And it could get warmer, too. Some of the models have been back and forth on this, trying to push that jet stream further north into Canada. That's a typical position in July that it would slide north.

We would see drier weather, hotter weather. So far, it just hasn't happened. It stayed over us. But maybe by the end of next week, a string of sunnier and warmer days, Cathy. We'll see if we can get that to lock in a little bit here as we move through July and maybe into the first part of August.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, that'd be nice. What do you think of Hurricane Beryl? I mean, my gosh.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, this thing has been a monster on the satellite loops. Of course, it reached category 5 status. Right now, it is 75 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. And Jamaica is in a tough spot here during the next 12 to 24 hours. 140 mile an hour winds, so it's still a cat 4.

The eye looks like it'll cross on or just south of the coast of Jamaica. That puts Jamaica in the stronger right hand side of the storm. So they're talking about the potential for catastrophic damage there. And then the eye looks like it'll head toward the Cayman Islands late tonight and tomorrow morning.

So, very, very troubling, devastating storm. We're going to watch this. Longer range, it looks like it could go south of Cancun and then maybe to the Texas-Mexico border by about Monday. We'll see. A few models are turning that potentially north into the Texas or Louisiana coast. We'll have to watch this.

This already set records, Cathy-- first category 5 storm, earliest in the season. Usually, it doesn't happen this early. So the Atlantic Ocean full of warm water. And we thought this would be a busy hurricane season, and here we are.

CATHY WURZER: Ugh, I'm telling you. All right, well, I wish you a happy 4th of July holiday weekend.

PAUL HUTTNER: You, too. And have a great holiday. And enjoy those dry, sunny hours in between.

CATHY WURZER: I'm definitely going to go outside right now, as a matter of fact. Thank you. Talk to you later.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: That's MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. The latest forecast, by the way, Updraft blog, mprnews.org.