Steamy Monday with strong storms possible late
Total rainfall this week will be less than last week
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A heat advisory is posted for southwestern Minnesota Monday afternoon. Strong to severe storms are possible late Monday with drier weather Tuesday and Wednesday.
Steamy Monday; strong storms possible late
Monday will be quite warm across central and southern Minnesota. Highs will reach the upper 80s to low 90s in southwestern Minnesota.
Dew point temperatures will reach 70 degrees or higher by Monday afternoon, making it very humid and uncomfortable.
There’s a heat advisory from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. for southwestern Minnesota, where heat indices could reach the mid to upper 90s Monday afternoon. There’s also a flood watch for the Twin Cities and southeastern Minnesota into western Wisconsin for Monday night.
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There’s an enhanced slight risk (level 3 of 5) for severe storms late Monday with the primary threat being damaging wind gusts (See the map at the top of this post).
We will have a very strong cap, or warm air aloft, which prevents most storms from forming. However, there will be so much energy due to the warm temperatures and high dew points, any storms that potentially develop could quickly become strong to severe.
Here are two possibilities.
The first is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale Forecast System model. It has a cluster of storms developing in the evening and forming a bow echo of damaging wind gusts in the 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. time frame:
The second possibility is from NOAA’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh model. It has some activity developing, but probably below severe criteria:
Regardless, the storms Monday night aren’t expected to produce widespread heavy rainfall, but locally heavy rainfall is possible and any rain on saturated soils could be an issue.
Behind the cool front Tuesday it will be slightly cooler but dew points will drop significantly. Dew points will be in the 50s again by Tuesday afternoon.
Highs will range from the mid-70s north to mid-80s south.
We have another chance of showers and thunderstorms developing Thursday into Friday. Total rainfall this week will be less than last week, but all rainfall will have to be monitored carefully given the cresting rivers and saturated soils.
