Coming rains will help ease western Minnesota drought

More rain is back Saturday for the western half of Minnesota, with crumbs leftover for other areas. Sunday and Monday are drier and milder, but rain is back Tuesday. That leads to a gradual cooling trend for the state.

Clouds Saturday, rain in western Minnesota

After the sunshine finally burst through the cloud deck and marine layer fog on Friday, we had closer-to-average temperatures. A brilliant sunset should be looming, with some mid-level clouds adding a pop of color.

Sinking air on the back of the big storm currently off the Atlantic coast is compressing storms over our region. That impact will be most pronounced on Saturday.

It will be very much a repeat of late Wednesday into Thursday. We’ll have lots of clouds, heavier rain in western Minnesota and just a few paltry rain amounts around southeastern Minnesota and the Interstate 35 corridor.

The heavier rain will help ease drought conditions in western Minnesota. While you may not want it during your weekend, it will be great to have it in the soil before the ground freezes. We can bank some before next spring.

We have heard from many of you who want sunny and warm weather for one of the final “mild” weekends of the year (at least historically it’s one of the final mild weekends, El Niño could change things a bit).

If you’re wanting more sunshine, however, Sunday into Monday is probably more your speed. Both days should be in the lower 70s for southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, and mid-60s farther north in Minnesota.

Early-week rain across Minnesota

After just two days of largely sunny skies, the clouds are heralding more rain. It will start in northwestern Minnesota later Monday afternoon. For most of the state, however, the rain gets here early Tuesday. We are still looking for more than 1 inch of rain in many locations.

We could also get a Great Plains low skirting the Iowa-Minnesota border later next week on Thursday. That would serve up some more healthy rains along the Minnesota and Iowa border. Although much of this region is no longer in drought, it would not hurt to bank more rains ahead of 2027.

Apart from that potential complex (and often these end up diving just south of Minnesota altogether) the rest of the work week is pretty quiet as active weather goes. We will talk more about this system in Saturday’s Updraft.

Beginning next Friday, most longer range tools do start shaving a few degrees off of the lows and highs each successive day. By the week after next, several bar charts have highs in the Twin Cities down into the 50s. As you might imagine, accuracy falls off a ton after a week. So this is all pretty subjective, but there are signs of a cooldown looming.

What comes after, El Niño impact or not? Those cold signals the week after next probably won’t last too long. After that, the seasonal tools pop in warmer weather. Above is a blended map of the Lower 48 states, showing us with warmer temperatures.

This is all averaged out from now through the first bit of November, a pretty clear warm signal.