Holiday weekend, not too shabby

Overall this Fourth of July Holiday weekend was pretty nice in Minnesota. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were warm with plentiful sunshine. Dew points climbed into the 70s in parts of northwest Minnesota on Monday afternoon. Temperatures peaked at 90 degrees in Roseau and the Twin Cities, with a high of 85 at Duluth on Monday.

Thunderstorms rumbled across northern and central Minnesota overnight, dumping two thirds of an inch or rain or more at some locations, including St. Cloud. At daybreak thuderstorms were along the Iowa border in southwest Minnesota with a rather large area of rain in west central Minnesota.

Visible satellite image shows the bumps in the cloud cover where the thunderstorms were located at 630AM CDT. Notice the clearing line in in far northwest Minnesota.

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The bigger picture shows quite the cloudcover centered over Minnesota this morning. This infrared image depicts the coldest cloud tops, typically associated with precipitation, in the blue color.

For today, skies should be partly to mostly sunny over the northern third of the Gopher State, with periods of showers and thunderstorms over central and southern Minnesota. Some strong storms are possible, mainly south of a line from Montevideo to the Twin Cities to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Clearing skies are then expected from west to east during the course of the late afternoon and evening.

Wednesday and Thursday will be just dandy, with some increase in humidity for southern Minnesota on Thursday. The look ahead for the weekend suggests warm with a chance for scattered thunderstorms, mainly southern Minnesota.

We are entering the climatological warmest time of the year. The Climate Prediction Center of NOAA has outlined the upper Midwest with odds favoring above normal temperatures for mid July. That would keep maximum temperatures will into the 80s.

Here's a look at the future radar from an experimental WRF model being run from the Duluth NWS office. The image is showing radar reflectivity forecast at 3PM CDT this afternoon. The red colors are indicators of possible thunderstorms. This is a snapshot of the future radar based on computer model output. Interesting stuff.