Welcome thundershowers in southeast Minnesota

I remember being called out when I was working in Indianapolis, Indiana, during a drought year in the 80s when I used the term threat for rain.  During a dry spell any chance for showers is hardly considered a threat.

Some favored locations in southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin received some needed rainfall this afternoon.

The mid-afternoon visible satellite image clearly depicts the cloud tops of the thunderstorms to the southeast of the Twin Cities Metro area.

Preliminary observations from this afternoon show more than a half inch of rain at Winona, Minnesota, and LaCrosse, Wisconsin. A thunderstorm with heavy rain also  tracked just north Rochester International Airport.

While the drought in the state was erased by the June and early July rainfall, southwest Minnesota could use some widespread rain.  See this morning's blog for the rainfall deficit for July. Only 1.11 inches of rain was measured at Redwood Falls last month.

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The computer models had promised heavy rainfall this week somewhere close to Minnesota. During the course of the past couple of days the trend has been for the models to confine the heavy rain in far southwest Minnesota.

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Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Prediction Center have a resolution of the model output that places the band of two inch accumulation on Tuesday and Wednesday in Iowa. We'll have to see if this shifts north as we move through Tuesday evening.

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While showers  invade southwest Minnesota late on Tuesday, much of the state will be dry with comfortable summer temperatures.  Temperatures at daybreak tomorrow are not expected to be as chilly in northern Minnesota, where a low of 41 degrees was recorded at International Falls this morning.  It dropped down to 42 at Orr in northeast Minnesota.

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High temperatures on Tuesday are forecast to come up just a little shy of seasonal normals.

Looking into the middle of August, the trend for cooler than normal temperatures is likely to continue.  The normals are beginning to decline from the peak in late July.  The normal max/min for the Twin Cities on Aug. 15 are 81/62.

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