Drought is unchanged across Minnesota; thunderstorm chances Thursday night and Friday

Minnesota’s drought is unchanged from a week ago, but we do have two rounds of thunderstorms Thursday night and late Friday afternoon.

Minnesota’s drought unchanged

The latest drought monitor shows our stubborn drought hangs on with areas in at least moderate drought remaining at around 80 percent. The areas in severe drought are at 31 percent and extreme drought is at three percent of the state.

The areas of moderate, severe and extreme drought are largely unchanged and haven’t expanded from a week ago thanks to some frequent rainfalls. The rainfall lately hasn’t been enough to decrease areas of drought but have prevented expansion. 

Two rounds of storms Thursday night and Friday with more rain later Sunday

Some lingering showers will continue across south central Minnesota Thursday morning but the main events come Thursday night and again later in the day Friday. Strong to severe storms will develop late Thursday afternoon in South Dakota. Those storms will fill into a line and track east across Minnesota overnight.

The storms could be initially severe in South Dakota and southwest Minnesota. There’s a slight risk (level 2 of 5) of severe weather forecast with the main threats being damaging winds and large hail. The risk for severe weather in central and eastern Minnesota will be low.

We’ll see that activity clear out early Friday with some midday sunshine. This will destabilize the atmosphere allowing storms to regenerate late in the afternoon and evening Friday.

Those Friday late day storms could become severe for eastern Minnesota into western Wisconsin.

Saturday should be mostly sunny, but another system will bring the next chance of rain and thunder Sunday afternoon into the evening.