Steamy through Thursday; late Thursday thunderstorms

Highs today will be in the mid to upper 80s over southern Minnesota, with lower 80s to the north. Sticky dew points in the mid to upper 60s will be common.

Thursday's highs will be close to 90 in southern Minnesota, with mid- to upper-80s central Minnesota and lower 80s to the north:

Dew points could touch the tropical 70 degree mark over central and southern Minnesota on Thursday.

An isolated shower or thunderstorm is possible over southeastern Minnesota and the Twin Cities late this afternoon or this evening, but the main event will be tomorrow.

An approaching cold front will ignite some thunderstorms over northwestern Minnesota tomorrow morning. The storms will spread southeastward during the afternoon. Thunderstorms could arrive in the Twin Cities late Thursday afternoon or early Thursday evening.

Periods of thunderstorms are likely Thursday night and Friday, and some could be severe.

The Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service has a slight risk of severe weather Thursday and Thursday night for most of central and southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro area:

In the Twin Cities, the best chance of severe weather appears to be Thursday evening and Thursday night.

Thunderstorm rain totals can vary greatly across the Twin Cities metro area. On Tuesday, for instance, Shakopee reported 4.18 inches of rain from the afternoon into the early evening.  That is about 20 times the amount of rain (.2 inches) that fell just about 18 miles away at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Cooler weekend

We've been blessed with two consecutive beautiful weekends, featuring ample sunshine and near normal temps.

Highs in the lower 70s are expected this weekend in southern Minnesota, with upper 60s to the north. Scattered showers are expected on Saturday, but we'll have some sunshine on Sunday.

Better flood forecasts

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday that it's now using a new and more accurate flood forecasting model:

Per the NOAA press release:

NOAA and its partners have developed a new forecasting tool to simulate how water moves throughout the nation’s rivers and streams, paving the way for the biggest improvement in flood forecasting the country has ever seen.

Launched today and run on NOAA’s powerful new Cray XC40 supercomputer, the National Water Model uses data from more than 8,000 U.S. Geological Survey gauges to simulate conditions for 2.7 million locations in the contiguous United States. The model generates hourly forecasts for the entire river network. Previously, NOAA was only able to forecast streamflow for 4,000 locations every few hours.

The model also improves NOAA’s ability to meet the needs of its stakeholders — such as emergency managers, reservoir operators, first responders, recreationists, farmers, barge operators, and ecosystem and floodplain managers — with more accurate, detailed, frequent and expanded water information.