What April? Blustery again Friday, much nicer Saturday
April weather history is extreme in Minnesota.
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Silver weather linings. That’s what we often have to mine for in our Minnesota climate.
And April can be the toughest month at this latitude. We’ve just endured another winter. The promise of spring teases us.
Higher April sun angle and intensity, and longer daylight on the few sunny days lately make us feel warmer. But a wintry chill lingers as the atmosphere throws another wave of cold rain and snow showers at us.
The overall weather pattern across North America still looks more March than April. Swirling pools of cold air aloft dip deeply southward into the United States.
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Friday brings one more blustery gray day with a brisk northwest wind. Clouds will linger most of Friday, but we should see fewer rain and snow showers as our stalled storm edges eastward Friday. Highs will reach the 30s and 40s across Minnesota Friday.
Nicer weekend
I don’t want to oversell the weekend weather forecast, but Saturday looks like a very nice early spring day. We’ll see mostly sunny skies across all of Minnesota Saturday.
Winds will be light. Highs will reach the 50-degree mark in much of southern Minnesota with 40s north. Take it and run with it.
Sunday starts sunny, but clouds will increase later Sunday. Northwestern Minnesota gets another round of rain and possibly snow showers late Sunday, but temperatures will feel a lot better than Thursday.
I’m still watching a potentially powerful storm across the center of the nation next week. There’s still a good deal of uncertainty regarding the strength and track of next week’s storm, but most forecast models bring another mix of rain and possible snow to Minnesota next week.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Forecast System model shows one possible solution.
The early indications are this storm has the potential to produce a large severe weather outbreak in the central U.S. next Wednesday.
It’s too early to be confident about the location of the severe weather risk, but if recent forecast model trends hold Minnesota could be on the northern edge of that zone.
Stay tuned.