- 2 days ago
A wet summer so far could get even wetter as humidity and storms return to the region next week.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Well, that Canadian wildfire smoke continues to sit over Minnesota, but will slowly depart over the weekend.
00:06Otherwise, still that cool, comfortable air, but warmer, more humid air, and the chance of thunderstorms returns next week.
00:23So air quality pretty bad across the state.
00:26It's in the red for the vast majority of us here, which is unhealthy for everybody in that air.
00:31Sticking around largely through the day today starts to improve tomorrow as this surface high pressure area starts to drift off to the east-southeast,
00:39sitting kind of right on top of us right now, which really kind of keeps the smoke in place.
00:43You get light winds in the middle of high pressure and sort of descending air, so that smoke doesn't go anywhere until this moves on.
00:50And then we'll get into a southerly flow here starting tomorrow and through the course of the weekend,
00:54which will start to push that smoke back north.
00:57But we had quite a thick plume of it, at least a loft here over the central part of the state earlier this morning.
01:02And models do keep that surface smoke around, as I mentioned today.
01:06Some of the worst of it here highlighted in green, but then kind of lifted north here as we head into tomorrow and the weekend.
01:12So things should start to improve as far as that air quality, hopefully here, at least getting into maybe more of the yellow or moderate category.
01:21Temperature is mostly in the 70s today for highs across the state.
01:24Some places lucky hitting 80 degrees, but for the most part, mostly 70s.
01:29Another cool night tonight.
01:3050s pretty much across the state.
01:32A little warmer, though, for northeastern Minnesota that's had some of those chilly overnights the last couple of mornings.
01:3734 in Aitken this morning, so probably warmer tonight, though.
01:41Back into the 70s here for tomorrow.
01:44Kind of copy-paste the same weather pattern here through the course of the weekend.
01:48Sunday as well, we'll see highs in the 70s for us.
01:51And those are just a few degrees below the normal for the time of the year.
01:54And signs that we could be heating up next week, upper 80s here in the European model.
01:58Some models pushing us to 90.
02:00It is going to get more muggy, too.
02:02And you know what that means, a chance of thunderstorms.
02:04So, yeah, this summer we're either hot, humid, and stormy, or comfortable and smoky.
02:10Those are your two choices.
02:11So dew points will start to increase to the west.
02:13And then you'll see those dew points expand by the middle of next week.
02:17Back in the 60s, maybe some 70-degree dew points.
02:19It doesn't look as humid as what we had last week.
02:22But we're going to be probably back into this kind of familiar ring-of-fire pattern
02:25with the heat sort of centered over the west and southwest.
02:28And us on that northeastern edge means that we will see several different disturbances kind of spin around.
02:35Those are noted here by those yellow and red little blobs that keep spinning clockwise around that upper-level high.
02:42And combined with a jet stream, low-level jet stream, those winds at 4,000 feet from the Gulf of Mexico pumping in that humid air.
02:50And that will produce clusters of storms occasionally for parts of the plains and even us as we head into mid-to-late week next week.
02:57But the model's not real excited about the heavy rainfall potential.
03:00This is a seven-day rainfall forecast with a blend of the models.
03:04And it's not particularly impressive here in eastern Minnesota.
03:08Maybe better chances of more significant rainfall in the western part of the state.
03:12But upper 70s today, tomorrow, Sunday.
03:15We'll see that smoke lingering into tomorrow at least.
03:18They may extend that air quality alert into Sunday.
03:20It might take a while to get this out of here with those lighter south winds.
03:24But you will notice the dew points increasing along with the temperatures heading into next week.
03:28More normal weather here for the early part of August in the 80s.
03:32Even above normal by later in the week.
03:34And again, some isolated thunder chances.
03:36They may be best.
03:37The best chances may be in the overnight hours here.
03:40And again, it doesn't look like any day will be a washout.
03:42But we do get into a more unsettled pattern with that return of humidity next week.