Cool this weekend; possibly some scattered showers

We were talking about warm weather during the first half of June, but the trend has now flipped to cool weather.

This is quite a change.

Here's a chart of Twin Cities temperatures this June, as logged at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport:

rt0623 clim2

The highlighted column shows the departure from normal each day, with negative numbers indicating cooler than normal days.

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You'll notice that all of our cooler than normal readings were in the past five days.

We'll have a cooler than normal Friday, with metro highs in the lower 70s.

Northern and central Minnesota will see highs mostly in the 60s Friday afternoon.

Weekend temps

There'll be no need to run your air-conditioner this weekend!

Weekend highs will be in the 60s over most of Minnesota, with some upper 50s in the northwest.

Our average high temp is 82 degrees in the Twin Cities this weekend, so highs will be running about 14 degrees below normal.

To put that into perspective, upper 60s would be a typical high temp for May 9 and Sept. 25 in the Twin Cities.

Warmer next week

On Monday, 70s will return to Minnesota:

rt0626h

Twin Cities highs will be in the lower 70s Monday, around 80 Tuesday, then lower 80s on Wednesday.

Rain chances

Scattered showers are possible this Friday morning in northwestern Minnesota. All of Minnesota will have a chance of scattered showers and an isolated thunderstorm Friday afternoon and evening.

We're expecting some scattered showers and an isolated thunderstorm in Minnesota both days this weekend.

Northeastern Minnesota will probably see the most minutes of rain, southwestern Minnesota will see the fewest minutes of rain.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's North American Mesoscale forecast model shows the rain pattern this weekend:

rt0623rad
NOAA NAM simulated radar from Saturday through Sunday morning, via tropicaltidbits

It'll probably rain in some areas that look dry on the simulated radar, but the loop illustrates the general rain pattern.

The color chart to the right of the loop refers to the strength of the signal that returns to the radar, not to the amount of rain.

Phoenix heat

Phoenix had a very hot week.

Here are this week's highs in Phoenix:

Monday: 118 degrees

Tuesday: 119 degrees

Wednesday: 117 degrees

Thursday: 113 degrees

New record highs were set on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The heat wave isn't over yet:

rt0623phx
NWS Phoenix

An excessive heat warning remains in effect for the Phoenix area through Monday.

Today's excessive heat warning covers much of Arizona, and parts of southern California and Nevada:

rt0623phxadv2
NWS Phoenix

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on Minnesota Public radio at 7:49 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.