Cooler Thursday, showers Friday; recent rains eased drought a bit

A few showers are possible in southwestern Minnesota. The rest of Minnesota will be partly cloudy with high temperatures in the 70s to low 80s. Showers develop Friday and we need the rain as the latest drought monitor shows.

Dry for most Thursday

After the passage of Wednesday’s cool front, temperatures and dew points are lower Thursday. It was downright chilly early Thursday morning in northeastern Minnesota with a low of 41 in Crane Lake. Hibbing and Ely were both 43 degrees.

Look for partly cloudy skies with more clouds in the southwest and brighter skies in northeast Minnesota Thursday.

Rain develops Thursday night into Friday

A disturbance aloft and large area of moisture has been moving in from the west coast up and around the high pressure heat dome to the west into Minnesota.

That combined with muggy air moving back in from the south will develop a few showers in southwestern Minnesota Thursday with more widespread scattered showers and storms for most of the rest of us Thursday night into Friday.

Rainfall amounts won’t be particularly high for most but we can expect anywhere from a few hundredths of an inch to three-quarters of an inch for most, primarily in the morning hours Friday.

It’ll be warmer for the weekend but the overall temperature trend into next week is near normal or even slightly cooler than normal.

Drought easing a bit, latest data shows

We certainly need the moisture in south-central and east-central Minnesota. The weekly U.S. drought monitor shows moderate to severe drought hanging on for most of those areas, although it has shrunk slightly.

The area of drought decreased from 14 to 11 percent of Minnesota and the area of severe drought, which includes much of the Twin Cities area, decreased from 4 to 3 percent.