Lots of 60s for Fishing Opener highs; milder temps ahead
I'm very happy that we don't have last Wednesday's weather for today's fishing opener in Minnesota. Wednesday's strong winds, cold temps and steady rains (with snow in parts of central and northeastern Minnesota) would have been hard to deal with!
Temps will be slightly on the cool side of normal today, but we'll take that. Winds pick up a bit Saturday afternoon, so there will be a nice walleye chop on some of the bigger lakes.
Good luck to all anglers.
Temperature trends
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Our average high temp is 68 degrees this time of year in the Twin Cities metro area. A few spots in the metro could reach the mid 60s Saturday afternoon, with lower 60s elsewhere.
High should reach the 60s across most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin Saturday afternoon, with some 50s along the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Sunday's highs reach the lower 60s in many areas, with some 50s near Lake Superior again:
Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the upper 60s Monday, followed by highs in the lower 70s Tuesday through Friday.
Rain chances
We could see some scattered showers at times Saturday afternoon and evening. An isolated thunderstorm is also possible.
The early morning run of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model shows this potential rain pattern Saturday afternoon and evening:
The HRRR model will not show every spot that will actually see some rain, but it illustrates the general pattern of scattered rain showers. You can see that parts of southwestern Minnesota could see some more extensive rain coverage at times.
Minnesota and western Wisconsin could see a few scattered light rain showers on Sunday.
Fishing opener info
The Minnesota State Climatology Office has compiled some extensive information about historic weather for the Minnesota Fishing opener. As you can imagine, we've seen some big temperature extremes. According to the Climatology Office:
Opening day temperatures have started as low as 24 degrees at International Falls (1996,2004), and sub-freezing conditions have even affected Minneapolis (31 degrees in 1979). On the warm side, St. Cloud saw 92 degrees in 1987, Minneapolis reported 91 in 1987, and International Falls reached 88 in 1977.
More information about fishing in Minnesota can be found at the Department of Natural Resources, and a history of past fishing openers back to 1948 can be found at the Minnesota Historical Society .
And did you know that the Minnesota Governor’s Fishing Opener has a website?
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.