More dry heat is coming

A rather weak low pressure system has been spinning clouds across Minnesota from the southwest today. Areas of rain have been confined mainly to southwestern and south central Minnesota during the afternoon, pinwheeling at times around the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, area.

Light showers will advance farther to the north and east and weaken this evening and overnight.

A few widely scattered showers are possible on Wednesday, mainly in the east.

Then the warming trend will commence again with renewed vigor. High temperatures should range generally from the low 70s to low 80s from Thursday through Saturday with just some 60s in the far north. Then on Sunday a cold front from Manitoba will bring cooler temperatures and probably scattered showers to the northern quarter of the state.

Fires rage in California

Wildfires continue to rage in northern California. The King fire west of lake Tahoe is the largest. That area is experiencing warm temperatures, low relative humidity and increasing winds today.

Smoke from the fire flows down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So the National Weather Service has issued a Dense Smoke Advisory for areas mainly northeast of the fire including Lake Tahoe, Reno, Carson City and Virginia City.

Sometimes during wildfires the rising hot air then cools and condenses into a vertically-developing pyrocumulus cloud. Lightning is even possible.

Note the cauliflower florets of crisp, white cloud climbing above the hazy gray or brown smoke.

There is hope for rain, however. The first Pacific storm of the season has begun to come onshore in the Pacific Northwest. It will bring rain to northern California, western Oregon, western Washington and Vancouver Island, Canada.

West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is normally an extremely dry area. But abundant rain has fallen the last few days from El Paso, Texas, eastward and any additional rain will cause more flash flooding.

Keep an eye out for possible northern lights during upcoming nights when the clouds break. For reasons unknown, they tend to be fairly common around the equinoxes. And the longer nights and lack of mid-winter cold makes more comfortable viewing conditions.

Even if the northern lights fail to appear, you can be treated to a spectacular view of the Milky Way stretching from northeast to southwest after sunset if you are in a rural area as the sky will be moon-free and dark.