Drought gone in much of Minnesota; blustery Saturday ahead

Things are looking exponentially better on Minnesota’s drought maps these days.

Check out the comparison I pulled between Sept. 21 and Oct. 19 at the top of this post. You can see how drought has been erased from much of Minnesota in the past four weeks.

Here are some specific and telling drought statistics:

• 95 percent of Minnesota was in drought on Sept. 21

• 58 percent of Minnesota is in drought as of Oct. 19

• 26 percent of Minnesota was in extreme or exceptional drought on Sept. 21

• 1 percent of Minnesota is in extreme drought as of Oct. 19 (no exceptional drought)

• 5-10 inches of rain has fallen across much of eastern Minnesota in the past month

Abundant rainfall

Our wetter fall weather pattern over the past month has produced a series of prolific rain storms. Much of eastern Minnesota has picked up 5 to 10 inches of rainfall in the past 30 days.

Here’s the 30-day precipitation map from the Midwest Regional Climate Center:

The progress in easing drought in Minnesota before the winter freeze-up is critical. Soils are being recharged, and rivers, lakes, ponds, and aquifers are also getting fuller.

Blustery Saturday ahead

I hope you got out and enjoyed our spectacular fall Friday. This was probably the best day of fall for most of Minnesota.

I grabbed this shot of a beautiful blue sky and vibrant fall colors Friday afternoon from Chaska, southwest of Minneapolis:

Highs Friday reached 70 degrees from parts of the Twin Cities westward. A tongue of mild fall air mass drifted north into the Upper Midwest.

Saturday brings a cold front with gusty northwest winds to 30 mph. Highs will be mostly in the 50s with a few 60s in the south.

Temperatures will dip into the upper 30s and low 40s across Minnesota early Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, highs will reach the 50s in most of Minnesota with low 60s southwest.

Unsettled next week

Monday and Tuesday look fairly mellow next week, but forecast models continue to crank up possible rain events by the middle of next week. There’s still quite a bit of model uncertainty on timing and temperatures. Expect some rain likely Wednesday and Thursday.

A couple of models hint at possible snow Friday, but they are in the minority of forecast model solutions.

I’m not the type to post a bunch of model snowfall forecasts a week out. If I see something that makes me think it’s likely we’re going to see accumulating snow in Minnesota, I’ll post it.

Enjoy the weekend!